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CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


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; NOW Ld 1995 
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Soul-Searching 
Parables 






Evangelistic Sermons on the 
Parables of Jesus 


By, rath 
LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 


“Author of Bible Soul-Winners;’ * Wonderful Bible Conversions;’’ 
‘* The New Ten Commandments,” etc. 





New Yorre CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LONDON AND EDINBURGH 


Copyright, McmMxxv, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


TO 
MY WIFE, 
FLORENCE AIKEN BANKS, 
MY MOST SYMPATHETIC AND INSPIRING 
CRITIC, THIS VOLUME IS 
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 


| 


AAV Awe 
Way 


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Contents 


Tue ARCHITECT, THE BUILDERS, AND 
THE TPooNDATION - 
Christ’s Story of the Two Buslaees 
Matthew 7:24-27 


THe TRAGEDY OF A CHARACTER WITH- 
OUT IDBALS 


Christ’s Story of the Untruitful Fig Ties 
and of The Empty House 


Matthew 12:43-46; Luke 13:6-9 


THE ROMANCE oF Gop’s FARM 
Christ’s Story of the Sower 
Matthew 13:3-9 


THe YEAST OF CHRISTIAN WoOMAN- 
HOOD IN MopERN LIFE 


Christ’s Story of the Leaven that a 
aid Hid in Three Measures of 
eal 


Matthew 13:33 


THe Hippen TREASURE AND THE 
PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 
Matthew 13: 44-46 


SALVATION CoMES THROUGH PRAYER 


Christ’s Stories of the Midnight Friend; 
the Importunate Widow; and the Phar- 
isee and the Publican 


Luke 1175-10; Luke 18:1-8; Luke 18:9-14 


Gop’s TITLE To ME ‘ 
Christ’s Story of God’s Ownership of Man 
Luke 17:7-10 


hs 


36 


/\ 


82 


VIII. 


IX. 


ATs 


XIII. 


XIV. 


CONTENTS 


ForGIVENESS—THE Most LovABLE OF 
ALL THE GRACES p 93 


Christ’s Story of a Roreivies King aid 
an Unforgiving Servant 


Matthew 18 :23-35 


THe Suy SINGER AMONG THE GrRAcEs' 107 


Christ’s Story Illustrating the Beauty and 
Value of Humility 


Luke 14:7-14 
Gop’s Catt TO MANHOOD. E ater 


Christ’s Story of the Two Sons 
Matthew 21:28-31 


. Tue BANQUET OF GoD... gl Bes 


Christ’s Story of the King’s Wedding 
Feast 


Matthew 22:1I-14 


THe FLaminGc TorcH oF A TRIUM- 
PHANT PERSONALITY , CO SO 
Christ’s Story of the Ten Virgins 
Matthew 25:1-13 


Man, Gop’s STEWARD. ; : . 164 
Christ’s Story of the Talents 
Matthew 25:14-50 

THe Poputar MAN AT THE JuDG- 
MENT (03/1209, . 178 


Christ’s Story of the Final Accounting 
Matthew 25:31-40 


I 


THE ARCHITECT, THE BUILDERS, AND 
THE FOUNDATION: 


CHRIST’S STORY OF THE Two BUILDERS 


“ Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, 
and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who 
built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, 
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon 
that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the 
rock. And every one that heareth these words of mune, 
and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, 
who built his house upon the sand: and the rain de- 
scended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the 
fall thereof.’—MatrHeEw 7: 24-27. 

HIS story sounds very natural when com- 

ing from the Carpenter of Nazareth. 

Christ was at home here. From boy- 
hood He had worked in a carpenter shop and had 
to do with house-building. It ought to bring Jesus 
very close to working men and women who toil 
with their hands. Jesus knew what it meant to 
earn His bread by the sweat of His brow. 

In this day, when such tremendous advance and 
blessing in better wages and better hours and im- 
proved conditions of toil are coming all around the 
world, it is of the highest importance to remember 
that back of all these revolutions and upheavals 


which are giving voice and power to labor is Jesus 
9 


10 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Christ, with His seed-corn sayings of love and 
mercy and justice, that have accomplished more 
in doing away with the brutality and cruelty of the 
earlier ages than all else combined. 

Edwin Markham is the author of a thought- 
provoking poem entitled The Toiler Thinks. More 
than twenty years ago I preached a sermon in- 
spired by The Man with the Hoe, by the same 
author. The Toiler Thinks is evidently a sequel 
to The Man with the Hoe, It is not often that a 
poet lives to write a sequel to a world-famous poem 
on a theme so momentous. 

We are told that Markham was inspired to write 
this poem from a study of Rodin’s statue, The 
Thinker, a crouched and slowly awakening figure. 
Naturally, to the poet, this brought at once the 
inspiring suggestion that the stunned, stolid “‘ man 
with the hoe” of his earlier poem was beginning 
at last to think. 

As he first glances at the statue he sees only 
“the man with the hoe,” and exclaims: 

“ Behold, this time-scarred Titan ts 
The man come down from centuries— 
Forever beaten as the ox, 
Forever silent as the rocks.” 

But as he studies the creation of the sculptor, 
he grasps something new; his imagination catches 
fire, and he cries: 

“ Behold, for Thought begins to stir 


This brain that was a sepulcher, 
Behold, this void abyss of night 


ARCHITECT, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 11 


Struck by a timid beam of light— 

This terror-shape, all brute and brawn, 
This deep of darkness touched with dawn. 
A star breaks on the chaos—lo, 

The Shapes of Night begin to go!” 


Now the poet’s brain is all aflame with the in- 
finite possibilities that may come from such an 
awakening. He puts himself in the monster-giant’s 
place, and considers the questions that will natu- 
rally throb in that long-dormant brain. What 
questions he asks of the modern world!—he who 
so long has carried the world’s loads; who, for so 
many centuries, has been used for cannon fodder 
at the whim of kings and aristocratic lords!—now 
he begins to give voice to the dynamic questions 
that our own present age must answer: 


“Behold, O world, the Toiling Man, 
Breaking at last the ancient ban; 
For more than Eden’s curse was his— 
Mind-darkened down the centuries. 
But after ages of blind toil, 

Ages that made his soul the spoil 

Of tyrants and of traitors—see, 

He ponders . . . and the world is free! 
Hark, for his awful questions throng 
To thunder ’gainst the ancient wrong: 
“Why am I bent with brutal loads? 
Why am I driven on all roads? 
Where is the laughter and the light 

To cheer the workman in his might? 
Why should my Godlike toil destroy 
My world of beauty and of joy? 

Why, since I feed the mouths of all, 
Have I the careless crumbs that fall? 
Why with these labor-blasted hands 
Am I left homeless in all lands? 

Why is the one that builds the world 
Left as a dog in kennel curled? 

Why is the one that beautifies 

The kingdoms, robbed of seeing eyes? 


12 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Why am I hurled into hells of war, 

I who have nothing to battle for? 
Why should I fight for lords, indeed, 
I who have only mouths to feed— 

I who am only the earth’s old slave, 
Whose only gain would be a grave!’” 


It is a great and timely poem by a great-souled 
man. Let us study its problems in the light of the 
teaching of Jesus, who is the supreme type of the 
working man who thinks. 

I 

This story gives us a rare opportunity to remem- 
ber that our holy Christianity was, on the human 
side, the production of workingmen who actually 
earned their living by toiling with their hands, and 
that the roots of every tree of brotherhood that 
has proved a blessing to toiling men and women 
have their sprouting point in the New Testament 
story of Jesus Christ and His followers, who toiled 
for their daily bread, but whose brains were so 
productive in high and noble thoughts that they 
established Christianity among men and wrought 
a moral revolution in the world. 

Christ’s foster-father was a village carpenter, 
and Christ was brought up to that trade, and as a 
boy and young man, until thirty years of age, 
earned his daily bread and clothing by working in 
this manner. 

Bishop Robert McIntyre, who, until he became 
a preacher, was a bricklayer, and who proudly 
kept up his membership in his “ Bricklayers’ Local 
Union ” till the day of his death, has left us a song 


ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 13 


revealing his thoughts about Jesus as a carpenter: 


“T wish I had been His apprentice, to see Him each morning 

at seven, 

As He tossed His gray tunic far from Him, the Master of 
earth and of heaven, 

When He lifted the lid of His work-chest and opened His 
carpenter kit 

And looked at His chisels and augers, and took the bright 
tools out of it, 

While He gazed at the rising sun tinting the dew on the 
opening flowers, 

And smiled as He thought of His Father, whose love 
floods this planet of ours. 

When He fastened His apron about Him, and put on His 
workingman’s cap, 

And grasped the smooth haft of Hts hammer, to give the 
bent woodwork a tap, 

Saying, ‘Lad, let us finish this ox yoke. The farmer must 
put in his crop’ 

Oh, I wish I had been His apprentice, and worked in the 
Nazareth shop. 

Some wish they had been on Mount Tabor, to hearken 
unto His high speech 

When the quick and the dead were beside Him, He hold- 
ing communion with each. 

Some wish they had heard the soft accents that sitlled the 
wee children’s alarms, 

When He won the sweet babes from their mothers and 
folded them fast in His arms. 

Some wish they had stood by the Jordan when holy John 
greeted Him there, 

And seen the white dove of the Spirit fly down o’er the 
path of His prayer. 

Some wish they had seen our Redeemer when into the 
basin He poured 

The water, and, girt with a towel, the servant of all was 
the Lord; 

But for me, if I had the choosing, oh, this would them 
all overtop, 

To work all day steady beside Him, of old in the Naza- 
reth shop. 

These heavenly wonders would fright me, I cannot ap- 
proach to them yet, 

But oh, to have seen Him, when toiling, His forehead all 
jeweled with sweat. 

To hear Him say softly, ‘My helper, now bring me the 
level and rule’ 


14 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


To have Him bend over and teach me the use of each 
artisan’s tool. 

To hear Him say, ‘ This is a sheep gate, to keep in the wan- 
dering flock, 

Or ‘This is a stout oaken house sill. I hope tt will rest 
on a rock. 

And sometimes His mother might bring us our meal in the 
mid-summer heat, 

Nad it so simply before us, and bid us to sit down 
and eat. 

Then with both of us silent before Him, the blessed Mes- 
siah would stop 

To say grace, and a tremulous glory would fill all the 
Nazareth shop.” 


And the brilliant and versatile Dr. Charles M. 
Sheldon, whose graphic novel, /n His Steps, has 
given inspiration to millions of readers, also bursts 

into song at the sight of the Carpenter of Nazareth: 


“If I could hold within my hand 
The hammer J esus swung, 
Not all the gold in all the land, 
Nor jewels countless as the sand, 
All in the balance flung, 
Could weigh the value of that thing 
Round which His fingers once did cling. 


“Tf I could have the table he 
Once made in Nazareth, 
Not ail the pearls in all the sea, 
Nor crowns of kings to be 
As long as men have breath, 
Could buy that thing of wood He made,— 
The Lord of lords who learned a trade. 


“Yea, but His hammer still is shown 
By honest hands that toil, 
And round His table men sit down, 
And all are equals, with a crown 
Nor gold nor pearls can soil; 
The shop at Nazareth was bare— 
But brotherhood was builded there.” 


The illustrations Jesus used throughout His 


ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 15 


ministry were all of a type and character to give 
honor to labor and dignity to workingmen. 

Just glance at the parables or stories of Jesus. 
Take this: ‘‘ Behold a sower went forth to sow.” 
In it Jesus proceeds to tell how some fell on hard- 
packed ground, and the crows and blackbirds got 
it; and some fell on stony ground, and some among 
thorns, and some in good, mellow soil. But the 
toiler is the center of the picture. 

Look again! This time it is a hard-working 
woman: “ The kingdom of heaven is like unto 
leaven which a woman took and hid in three mea- 
sures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” Evi- 
dently Jesus had seen His own, sweet mother, 
Mary, doing that again and again in the house of 
the carpenter in Nazareth. 

Next time it is a fisherman: ‘“‘ Again, the king- 
dom of heaven is like unto a net, which was cast 
into the sea, and gathered of every kind.” 

Then again it is the story of a sheep-herder—a 
lonely job. This man had a hundred sheep and 
one strayed aside during the day and was lost. 
And after dark, the brave. herder risks his life to 
find that lost sheep. 

But I could go on for an hour simply reciting 
the condensed stories by which Jesus, in His great 
teaching, gave honor and dignity to the humblest 
toilers of his day. 

And the men and women whom Christ chose to 
follow on and establish the Christian Church were 


16 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


of the same type. He called four of them at one 
time—they were all fishermen—Peter, James, John 
and Andrew. The first three became, under the 
inspiration of Christ’s teaching and example, strong 
and notable personalities. Peter became one of 
the most effective orators, in swaying great masses 
of people, the world has ever known; and all three 
of them wrote books the circulation of which has 
a thousand times exceeded that of the best sellers 
of our day and will last as long as humanity shall 
endure on the earth. 

The greatest of all the great missionaries of the 
Early Church was Paul, and he was by trade a 
tent-maker. Paul had had better opportunities 
for education and culture than any of the others, 
and was easily the peer of the greatest minds of 
his own or any other age of the world’s history, 
but he gladly worked at his trade as a tent-maker 
for years at a time, in order to earn his living, 
while he constantly used every opportunity to 
spread abroad the Gospel of the Carpenter of 
Nazareth. 

So we are certainly within the truth when we 
claim that Christianity has been, from the begin- 
ning, the religion of workingmen and women who 
think. 

II 


The latter part of The Toiler Thinks gives us a 
vivid and inspiring prophecy of the awakening of 
the great unthinking mass of toilers in all lands, 


ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 17 


and the results that shall flow from it. It is an 
inspiring vision: 
“ Behold, O world, the Toiler thinks! 
Now these old questions of the Sphinx 
Will have their answers. In this pause 
Are epochs, institutions, laws— 
The fall of Anarchy and Chance; 
The crumble of Brute circumstance ; 
The building of the Comrade State, 
To be a new benignant Fate; 
The rise of Beauty to her throne 
When she shall make all hearts her own.” 

But we must pause right there in the flight of 
our poet’s fancy and remark that everything de- 
pends on who leads these toiling thinkers whether 
Beauty is to come to her throne or no. If Christ 
leads the thought of the awakening world of toil- 
ers, then we may be sure of a new and noble ap- 
preciation of beauty; but if some unfeeling mon- 
ster of selfishness, like Lenine, who devastated 
Russia, shall dominate the thinking of the world 
of toilers, we shall have a far different future for 
the world. 

A Russian writer, Alexander Kuprin, contrib- 
uted to The Atlantic Monthly a searching and 
critical study of Lenine when he was still living 
and was the loudest bidder for Christ’s place as 
leader of the toiling millions of the world. Listen 
to this carefully drawn verdict: 

“Beauty and art do not exist for Lenine. He has never 
been interested in the question why some people are moved 


to ecstatic joy by Beethoven’s Sonata, or a Rembrandt paint- 
ing, or the Venus of Milo, or Dante’s poetry. Listening to 


18 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


such effusions, he would say with the condescending smile of 
a grown-up man speaking to children, ‘Men sometimes waste 
their time on trifles. All these works of art that you speak 
of—what relation do they bear to the class-struggle and the 
future power of the proletariat? ’” 


Suppose these toilers, newly-quickened into 
thought, fall into the hands of a leadership like 
that, will Beauty rise to the throne? No, indeed! 
Christ must lead the thought of the toilers if the 
beautiful in life and art shall find its rightful 
appreciation. 

Markham goes forth on his vision to watch the 
crumbling thrones of tyrants destroyed by the 
dynamite in these new thoughts of the toiling 
masses, and finds the consummation of the vision 
in the building of a new world government in 
‘““comrade song.” It is a splendid conception, 
worthy of the author of The Man with the Hoe: 


“ Chained to the earth his body seems, 
And yet his soul rides forth on dreams! 
Tyrants, beware, for there is might 
In dreams to shake the pillared might, 
A power more potent to compel 
Than all the dark decrees of hell. 

He ponders, and the moment awes; 
For the world’s fate is in that pause. 
All destinies are in that hush; 

For in it is the power to crush 

All the old battlements of wrong 

And build the world in comrade song. 
Ages the night was round him furled: 
Behold the morning of the world! 


“ Tyrants, the morning is your doom: 
Day yawns about you as a tomb; 
Day is your cavern of the night. 

Flee, then, before the coming light! 
Flee, flee! This is the Toiler’s hour: 
Behold God coming down in power! 





ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 19 


ze Tiina the Tools begin to think: 
Now all your lawless thrones will sink. 
And a new world will sofily rise 
With laughter and with lyric cries. 
Thought is God’s thunder at the gate, 
The Rhadamantine voice of Fate. 
Today is judgment day: awake, 
Upstart, O toiling millions, break 
The shackles, lift the flag unfurled, 
Rise, outcast monarchs of the world!” 

This is a sublime finish to a great poem. But 
again I would emphasize that it all depends for its 
realization on whether Christ or a Lenine is to lead 
this new dynamic force. We all must realize that 
there is immeasurable power in these “ outcast 
monarchs of the world ” of whom Markham writes 
with the eloquence of genius; but whether that 
power shall be used as the Hebrew giant, Samson, 
used his in his outcast state, to pull down the tem- 
ple of life upon himself as well as his enemies, or 
whether it shall be used to uplift the whole race 
and usher in the golden age of humanity, depends 
on the leadership which shall be followed. 

If the Christian churches of America will rise to 
their full power in the spirit of the Carpenter of 
Nazareth, the tent-maker of Tarsus, and the fish- 
ermen of Galilee, and will seize for their divine 
Lord the leadership of the toiling world, the vision 
of Markham, and the earlier visions of Isaiah and 
Christ, shall come true, and “ the kingdoms of this 
world shall become the Kingdom of our God and 


of His Christ.” 


. J 
4 
“er 


20 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


III 


One thing, which is the breath of life in the 
poem we have been studying, and which Christ 
made very clear in all the work and teaching of 
His life, we ought never to forget to emphasize— 
that the most dignified life in the world is that of 
the worker. Jesus said, “My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work.” 

John Greenleaf Whittier was as noble and hon- 
orable a personality when working at his trade as 
a shoemaker as when writing poems that helped to 
free the slave; and Abraham Lincoln was as 
wholesome and noble a specimen of lofty manhood 
when splitting rails in the Sangamon bottom in 
Illinois as when writing the Emancipation Procla- 
mation that gave freedom to millions of ground- 
down toilers. 

Work,—honest, needful work,—to bless the 
world and help humanity up the steeps of time 
toward God and heaven, is all honorable. Work 
of the hands, the brain, or the heart is alike divine, 
if serving a noble purpose. No one in our day, 
or, so far as I am able to recall, in any other day, 


has written with more inspiration and good cheer 


and enthusiasm the song of the worker than Angela 
Morgan. It has all the thrill of the bugle note 
calling to heroic and glorious combat for noble 
conquest: 

“ W ork. 


Thank God for the might of tt, 
The ardor, the urge, the delight of it— 


ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 21 


Work that springs from the heart’s desire, 
Setting the brain and the soul on fire— 
Oh, what is so good as the heat of it, 

And what is so glad as the beat of it, 

And what is so kind as the stern command, 
Challenging brain and heart and hand? 


“Work. 
Thank God for the pride of 1t, 
For the beautiful, conquering tide of it, 
Sweeping the life in its furious flood, 
Thrilling the arteries, cleansing the blood, 
Mastering stupor and dull despair, 
Moving the dreamer to do and dare, 
Oh, what is so good as the urge of tt, 
And what is so glad as the surge of it, 
And what is so strong as the summons deep, 
Rousing the torpid soul from sleep? 


“W ork. 
Thank God for the pace of it, 
For the terrible, keen, swift race of tt, 
Fiery steeds in full control, 
Nostrils aquiver to greet the goal. 
Work, the power that drives behind, 
Guiding the purposes, taming the mind, 
Holding the runaway wishes back, 
Reining the will to one steady track, 
Speeding the energies faster, faster, 
Triumphing over every disaster, 
Oh, what is so good as the pain of tt, 
And what is so great as the gain of it? 
And what is so kind as the cruel goad, 
Forcing us on through the rugged road? 


“Work. 
Thank God for the swing of it, 
For the clamoring, hammering, ring of it, 
Passion of labor daily hurled 
On the mighty anvils of the world. 
Oh, what is so fierce as the flame of it? 
And what is so huge as the aim of tt, 
Thundering on through dearth and doubt, 
Calling the plan of the Maker out, 
Work, the Titan; Work the friend, 
Shaking the earth to a glorious end, 
Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, 
Doing whatever the Spirit wills— 
Rending a continent apart, 


22 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


To answer the dream of the Master heart, — 
Thank God for a world where none may shirk— 
Thank God for the splendor of work.” 


IV 

And let us not forget that we are, each one of 
us, builders. If we build on the rock of the great 
sayings of Jesus about God, His hatred of sin, His 
love and mercy to every sinner that repents, our 
temple of life will stand secure under all the storms 
of temptation or sorrow or disappointment that 
may beat upon it. But if we build upon our pride 
in the strength of our bodies, the brilliancy of our 
minds, the energy and efficiency of our own per- 
sonality, we are like the foolish man who built his 
house on the sand, for all these things are only 
loaned us by our heavenly Father and will soon 
wear out and disappear. 

My friend, you are a builder not for time only, 
but for eternity. You are building not for the 
warm, inspiring spring climate of youth, but for 
the hot, blistering winds and burning suns of the 
summer-time of middle age and the driving, freez- 
ing blizzards of old age and death. You are build- 
ing not for this world only, but for that other world 
that shall endure forever. 

Who is your architect? Is it Selfishness who is © 
laying out your plans? Then beware! No one 
' ever gave over the building of his life-temple to 
that architect who did not find out afterwards that 
it was built upon the shifting sands. Is Greed 
your architect? Then beware! Jesus tells us of 


ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 23 


a man who employed that architect, and for a 
while he was very successful, until there came a 
time when he was so prosperous that his old archi- 
~ tect, Greed, said, ‘“‘ We will have to build larger 
barns (Greed is a great barn-builder) to store your 
goods.” And that rich builder said, “ All right, go 
ahead, build what you see fit; and then, when the 
new barn is finished and filled in every granary 
and mow and stall, I will sit back satisfied and say 
to my soul, ‘ Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 
many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be 
merry.’”? But Jesus says that on that very night 
God spoke to that barn-builder and said: ‘“ Thou 
foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; 
and the things which thou has prepared, whose 
shall they be?” And the comment of Jesus on 
that story is: “So is he that layeth up treasure 
for himself and is not rich toward God.” 

My dear friend, I recommend an Architect who 
never yet has failed on the home temple of any 
man or woman. No temple of His was ever over- 
thrown by life’s storms. He is an Architect of 
great experience. He once lived here on earth. 
He worked in a carpenter shop in Nazareth. The 
hand that holds His hammer has the prints of nails 
through the palm, nails on which He hung on the 
Cross on Calvary for you. Is He your Architect? 
If so, your building will stand forever. Oh, man— 
woman—choose Jesus as your Architect. He was 
Paul’s architect, and when the storms beat upon 


24 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


him in Nero’s dungeon, he was able to shout with 
joy: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
eous Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not 
to me only, but also to all them that have loved 
his appearing.” 

He was the Architect of your Christian mother 
and mine; and, thank God, He is my Architect. 
Make Him yours now! Then you can sing tri- 

V umphantly with Grant Colfax Tullar: 
netted stranger to earth—but an heir to a throne, 
He lived in Judea with those of His own; 


With toil He grew wearied like many a one, 
A humble Judean, ‘The Carpenter’s Son? 


“Whence hath He such wisdom, such power to display? 
The dead raised to life, earth's night turned to day. 
They never could fathom the deeds He had done, 

For was He not only ‘ The Carpenter's Son’? 


“This man of great sorrow, acquainted with grief, 
Who bought earth’s redemption, from sin gave relief— 
He gave His life gladly ere scarce ’twas begun, 

The offspring of David, ‘ The Carpenter's Son, 


“Tm sure that the mansion He’s gone to prepare 
Over yonder for me will be wondrously fair, 
With nothing that’s slighted, all perfectly done, 
For is not the builder ‘The Carpenter's Son’? 


if 


THE TRAGEDY OF A CHARACTER 
WITHOUT IDEALS: 


CurRist’s STORY OF THE UNFRUITFUL Fic TREE 
AND OF THE Empty HOUSE 


“4 certain man had a fig tree planted in his vine- 
yard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found 
none. And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these 
three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find 
none: cut it down; why doth it also cumber the ground? 
And he answering saith unto him, Lord let it alone this 
year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it: and if it 
bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou shalt cut ti 
down.’ —LuKE 13: 6-9. 

“The unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, 
passeth through waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth 
it not. Then he saith, I will return into my house 
whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it 
empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh 
with himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, 
and they enter in and dwell there: And the last state of 
that man becometh worse than the first.’—MATTHEW 
12: 43-46. 


T seems to me that these two stories go well 
together. They both very picturesquely and 
graphically portray a personality that is with- — 

out high ideals or purpose, a character that is 
only negative, without color or pep. In one story 
it is a tree that simply cumbers the ground and 
yields no fruit. In the other it is an empty house 


with no happy, vigorous life possessing it, a prey 
25 


26 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


to every wandering spirit of evil. In both cases 
there is nothing of that heroic spirit of adventure 
to which Jesus calls us in His appeal to follow 
Him. 

Hermann Hagedorn sings, I think, the greatest 
song yet sung by an American poet in recognition 
of the lofty ideals which in an unusual measure 
animated our American youth who gave their lives 
on a foreign field in the great World War. He 
hails them as Warriors of the Dream: 


, 
"4 “They pushed their glowing joys aside, 
They laid their shining hopes away; 
They hearkened, pale and starry-eyed, 
And closed the books and dropped the play. 
They said, ‘ There is a greater thing 
Than fame or golden harvesting. 
Out of the storm there came a cry 
And we will answer, though we die!’ 


“They answered from the seething plain, 
They answered from the reeling height, 
To the last reaching-forth, in pain, 
They sent their answer down the night: 
“Though hope allure and love enthrall, 
And precious youth and glory seem, 
Sweeter than all, greater than all, 
Is to give all to a dream!’ 


“ They will not come again to play 
The old games through the summer day, 
Or seek the cool woods or the brooks, 
Or open now thedusty books. 
Yet, where in crowds, with restless feet, 
The getters and the spenders meet, 
There is, at times, a strange deep sound 
Not from the sky, not from the ground, 
And voices such as music hath 
That shakes the heart and chokes the breath: 
“Though hope allure and love enthrall, 
And precious youth and glory seem, 
Sweeter than all, greater than all, 
Is to give all to a dream!’ 


CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS 27 


“On its old orbit swings this earth; 
Day comes, night comes; the seasons pass; 
And holy memories, amid mirth, 
Are but as shadows on a glass. 
Men may forget and time erase 
Of name and deed the last faint trace; 
But in still hours, amid their joys, 
Unborn, undreamed of, girls and boys 
Shall of a sudden be aware 
Of something not of earth or air, 
A burning brow, a glowing eye, 
A flame, a presence and a cry: 
‘Though hope allure and love enthrall, 
And precious youth and glory seem, 
Sweeter than all, greater than all, 
Is to give all to a dream!’” 


Jesus Christ calls every one of us to follow the 
most glorious dream of sacrifice and heroic en- 
deavor and achievement that ever inspired the 
mind of man. When I ask you to give yourself 
heart and soul to follow Jesus Christ, I am not in- 
viting you to enter on any commonplace journey. 
Rather I am offering you the privilege of entering 
on a career of romance and an experience of ex- 
citing interest. Paul, the dauntless hero of the 
Early Church, could never say enough to express 
his exultation in finding the Christian life more 
splendid than he had expected or could paint in 
human language. He was always coining new 
words to describe the glorious inspiration and en- 
joyment in his Christian life, despite all the things 
he endured for his Lord, often speaking about 
“the unsearchable riches of Christ,’ and “ the 
love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” 

Young man, young woman, dreaming of roman- 
tic adventure! You may find it in a real Christian 


28° CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


life as nowhere else. The appeal which won David 
Livingstone to Africa and his immortality was that 
daring offer of Robert Moffat: “I will take you 
where you will see the smoke of a thousand vil- 
lages in none of which is the Gospel of Christ 
known.” But do not imagine that it is only in a 
missionary life like Livingstone’s that there is 
romance for a Christian. There is no walk of life 
anywhere in any land where the Christian cannot 
find romantic adventure as the servant and part- 
ner of Jesus. Think of good Doctor McClure in 
Beside the Bonny Brier Bush. Think of the good 
Bishop who brought back to God the soul of Jean 


Valjean in Les Miserables. John Wanamaker did — 


not find his great Sunday school less interesting 
than his mercantile career. Heinz, the pickle- 
man, found his religious work more tasty and 
snappy than the ‘57 varieties” by which he 
earned his fortune. No, my friend, you may be 
sure that in business life, in the life on the farm, 
or in a professional career, your earnest, vital, 
Christian life will find glorious adventure every- 
where. 


These stories of Jesus make it very clear that — 


it is not in a life simply negative, taking no 
chances of being tested by positive, aggressive 
endeavor, that great manhood and noble woman- 
hood can be built up. “Safety first ” is all right 
in handling high-powered machinery and danger- 
ous explosives or in dodging automobiles; but is 


ee 


CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS ~— 29 


not the motto by which great human personality 
can be made. 

That dean of American poets, Edwin Markham, 
who occupies in America, today, something of the 
same relation to Christian faith that Robert 
Browning did in England during the later years 
of his life, writes a strong poem in The Homiletic 
Review entitled J Must Test His Spirit: 


“When in the dim beginning of the years, 
God mixed in man the raptures and the tears, 
And scattered through his brain the starry stuff, 
He said, ‘Behold! Yet this is not enough, 
For I must test his spirit to make sure 
That he can dare the vision and endure. 


““T will withdraw my face, 
Veil me in shadow for a certain space, 
And leave behind only a broken clue 
A crevice where the glory glimmers through, 
Some whisper from the sky, 
Some footprints in the road to track me by. 


“*T qill leave man to make the fateful guess, 
Will leave him torn between the no and yes, 
Leave him unresting till he rests in me, 
Drawn upward by the choice that makes him free— 
Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose, 
With all in life to win or all to lose.” 


Yes! it is the virile, positive life that develops 
character and personality, that does honor to God, 
and is fruitful in service to our fellows. Some one 
else sings: 

“The test of a man ts the fight that he makes, 

The grit that he daily shows; 
The way that he stands on his feet and takes 
Fate’s numerous bumps and blows. 


A coward can smile when there’s naught to fear, 
When nothing his progress bars, 





30 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


But it takes a man to Stand up and cheer 
While some other fellow stars. 

It isn’t the victory, after all, 
But the fight that a brother makes; 

The man who, driven against the wall, 
Stands up erect and takes 

The blows of fate with his head held high, 
Bleeding and bruised and pale, 

Is the man who'll win in the by and by, 
For he isw’t afraid to fail. 

It’s the bumps you get and the jolts you get, 
And the shocks that your courage stands, 

The hour of sorrow and vain regret, 
The prize that escapes your hands, 

That test your mettle and prove your worth; 
It isn’t the blows you'll deal, 

But the blows that you take on the good old earth 
That shows if your stuff is real.” 


Our stories bring out that good resolutions and 
strong wills, able to restrain a man from outward 
sin, are not enough to make us pleasing to God or 
Christ. 

What a terrific, tragic message is conveyed in 
this colorful story of the fate of the man who has 
been possessed by an _ unclean, foul spirit. 
Through some uprising of conscience, some time 
of spiritual movement in the community, some oc- 
casion when revival flame quickened dead souls 
into attention, a time when a man like John the 
Baptist had thundered forth the message of re- 
pentance from sin, the man had been aroused and 
awakened to the foul, unclean nest of his soul, and 
by stern will he drove that dominating unclean 
spirit from his heart and life; but, alas, he puts 
no other tenant of aggressive goodness into his 
soul to take its place. He is like an empty house. 
He is no longer foully unclean; but he is empty. 


CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS 31 


He is not a bad man; but he is not definitely, 
purposefully a good man. Do not some of you 
see in these lines a mirror of your own condition? 

But let us go on and note the tragedy that 
awaited this man. After a while, the unclean 
spirit comes back to the house from which he had 
been driven. If he had found a glad, brave, 
Christian life going on in that man’s soul; if he 
had found prayer there, and earnest purpose to 
obey God, to follow Christ, to help his fellow-men, 
that foul spirit would have gone away discour- 
aged; but, instead, he finds the place empty. 
That encourages the unclean spirit. But, he re- 
members that by himself he was not able to hold 
this man’s soul against an uprising of an awak- 
ened conscience, and he reflects. There comes to 
his evil mind the memory of a gang of evil spirits 
more vile and devilish than himself, and he hur- 
ries to them and says: “I have found a home for 
us all. It is an empty soul. I once lived there, 
but the man was too strong for me, and put me 
out in disgrace. But there are no new tenants yet, 
and if you seven will come with me, the eight of 
us will be strong enough to hold that man’s soul 
against all that he can do.” And so they came 
together with all their vile cunning and entered in 
and took possession; and Jesus says: “ The last 
state of that man becometh worse than the first.” 

Are there not many men and women in our 
churches, who once belonged genuinely to Christ, 


$2 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


but who have been turned from the current of 
their Christian career, or become submerged and 
lodged in the mud of worldliness, and will be lost 
forever unless some great freshet of heavenly 
flood shall give them a new start, or some grap- 
pling hook of a Christlike seeker after souls shall 
clutch them where they are marooned and lift 
them up again into the heavenly current? I am 
told that in the rivers of the Lake States there lie, 
today, millions of dollars’ worth of wealth in the 
form of pine logs which became waterlogged and 
sank during the drives of fifty years ago. These 
timbers when reclaimed from the river bottoms 
are virtually as good lumber as the day they were 
cut from the living tree. The lumber is slightly 
brittle, but its value is reduced very little. When 
the drives were on in the old days, the lumber- 
jacks and rivermen worked feverishly to keep the 
logs together that they might take advantage of 
the freshet water which was stored by means of 
a series of log dams in all the larger rivers and 
their tributaries throughout the pineries of the 
Lake States. Logs were banked on the river dur- 
ing the winter and in the spring break-up they 
went tearing down to the mills far below on the 
main streams. During periods of extremely high 
water many of these logs became hidden from view 
in quiet backwaters and bayous. Becoming 
water-logged, they sank to the bottom, where they 
have been preserved throughout the long years. 


CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS 38 


This timber is the property of several lumber 
companies, many of which have gone out of ex- 
istence years ago. Each log, however, bears the 
stamp of the company which cut it, and under the 
law it remains that company’s property. An at- 
tempt to salvage these timbers would be, in the 
eyes of the law, theft, unless undertaken by the 
owners or their heirs, many of whom have died. 
It has been estimated that in the Menominee 
River alone there is more than 100,000,000 feet 
of lumber, worth in the aggregate today a vast 
sum of money. The Muskegon, Manistee and 
Au Sable rivers in Michigan, the Chippewa in 
Wisconsin, and many of the larger streams in 
Northern Minnesota have these golden hoards in 
their beds awaiting the inevitable day when the 
laws will permit the exploitation and utilization of 
their hidden treasures. 

But there are greater treasures than these in the 
souls of men and women all about us offering 
glorious adventures to Christian men and women 
to salvage for eternity. 

And I must not close without an earnest word 
to those who find themselves in the last state pic- 
tured by Jesus in this story of the repossession of 
the soul by reinforced spirits of evil. 

I have for you a glorious message of hope. You 
may not be able—indeed, I know that you are not 
able in your own unaided strength,—to cast out 


. s 
eZ 
¥ 


i 


84 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


these evil spirits which have intrenched them- 
selves in the fortress of your soul. But Jesus is 
more than a match for your enemies. He who 
died on the cross for your sins; He who went 
down into the grave and came out again in glori- 
ous resurrection, is able to come into your soul 
and cast out every evil spirit and become Himself 
a glorious Master there. And if you will let Him 
come in, He will lead you forth on a romantic life 
of glad and blessed adventure. There is no other 
leader like Jesus, no other leader who can so fill 
every longing of your soul and supply all your 
need for time and eternity. 

Brenton Thoburn Badley, a great missionary 
leader and a great soul-winner for Jesus Christ, 
writing from Calcutta surrounded by all the bril- 
liant and picturesque coloring of Eastern life both 
in nature and in human forms, finds Jesus far more 
attractive and satisfying than anything else. He 
sings to Jesus: 


ai 


“Thy face is my horizon; 
When twilight falls midst mango topes 
And bamboo clumps are wreathed in smoke, 
O’er village nestled in the green of rice or wheat, 
And far beyond show purple mountain slopes, 
I hear the coming of Thy feet,— 
Thou art my wide horizon. 


“ Thy voice is all my music; 
When mainas hail the coming of the day, 
And orioles flash music at still noon, 
And when at dusk the koels call my heart rejotce. 
And cooing doves put forth their plaintive lay, 
I hear the whispers of Thy voice, 
Thou art my lasting music. 





CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS = 85 


“Thy name is all my glory; 
When men repeat the name of Ram, 
And temple bells resound in cloistered halls, 
And from the minarets muezzins voices raise, 
Revealing still the presence of Islam, 
I hear the angels sing ey praise — 
Thou art my name of glory. 


“Thy love is all my being; 
Not Kashmir’s flower-studded vale, 
Nor Jheelum’s banks nor Ganga’s breast, 
Nor palms nor pines, nor amaltas, 
Nor garden, snowy with the jasmine pale, 
Where bulbuls sing and sun-birds nest, 
Mean aught to me without Thy love,— 
Thou art my inmost heart, my all!” 


I call upon you now to let Jesus come into your 
heart and become your all-in-all. 


Iil 
THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM: 


CHRIST’s STORY OF THE SOWER 


“ And he spake to them many things in parables, say- 
ing, Behold, the sower went forth to sow; and as he 
sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the birds 
came and devoured them: and others fell upon the rocky 
places, where they had not much earth; and straightway 
they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth; 
and when the sun was risen, they were scorched; and be- 
cause they had no root, they withered away. And others 
fell upon the thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked 
them: and others fell upon the good ground, and yielded 
fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He 
that hath ears, let him hear.’—MatTrHew 13: 3-9. 

HERE is romance about the humblest 
farm. It is the romance of God’s open 
world, God’s glorious Out-of-Doors. The 

romance of the sunrise upon a world rested and 
refreshed; the romance of the hopeful morning, 
the restful noontide; the romance of the sunset, 
the wistful twilight, the curtains of darkness, and 
the glorious mystery of the moon and the stars. 
Then there is the romance of the changing sea- 
sons which no one knows so well as the farmer. 
It is the farmer boy or girl who knows where to 
look for the first spring flowers when the south 
wind blows softly. It is the farmer who knows 


that most delicious fragrance, the smell of newly- 
36 


THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 37 


plowed ground, while the robin-redbreast follows 
in his furrow for dislodged worms and bugs. 

The farm is glorified with the romance of 
growth. The farmer sees the green halo coming 
on the willow and oak and poplar. He sees the 
grain springing up to cover the signs of his toil 
with plow and harrow and drill with the gracious 
promise of harvest. 

The farm is full of the romance of birds and 
bees and wild life of every sort and kind. The 
farm is not only romantic in trees nurtured for 
their fruit, but glorious in pasture woods, where 
God’s wild orchards of hawthorn and crab-apple 
and wild plum and dogwood tell of God’s love for 
beauty and grace. 

It is the farmer who knows the joy of reaping; 
of full barns and huge stacks and bursting gran- 
aries; of lowing herds; of cellars filled against 
winter’s need. It is the farmer who has the ro- 
mantic joy of knowing that his toil feeds the 
world. In imagination he can see his grain and 
fruit feeding the governor or the judge in their 
far-away homes. As he dreams by his open fire, 
he sees the train or the ship that will carry his 
harvest to fill the empty tables in other lands than 
his own, may even dream that wool from his sheep 
and butter and cheese from his dairy may clothe 
the naked and feed the hungry thousands of miles 
away on the other side of the globe. 

' The farm has always about it the romance of 


88 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


adventure. Last year may have been despoiled 
by drouth or flood, but this is a new year, fresh 
from the hand of God, and may break all records 
for fruitfulness and blessing. So it is not without 
warrant that I have named my theme the romance 
of the farm. 

But Jesus told this story to illustrate God’s 
farm in our human hearts. Later, when the dis- 
ciples had Jesus alone to themselves, they asked 
Him about it, and the Master said: “ Hear then 
ye the parable of the sower. When any one hear- 
eth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth 
it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth 
away that which hath been sown in his heart. 
This is he that was sown by the wayside. And he 
that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he 
that heareth the word, and straightway with joy 
receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but 
endureth for a while; and when tribulation or 


persecution ariseth because of the word, straight-_ 


way he stumbleth. And he that was sown among 
the thorns, this is he that heareth the word; and 
the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of 
riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruit- 


ful. And he that was sown upon the good ground, © 


this is he that heareth the word and understand- 
eth it; who verily beareth fruit, and bringeth 
forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some 
thirty.” 

So you see that it is the soil of our minds and 


————— ee 


THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 39 


hearts God is seeking to cultivate. This is what 
Paul meant when, writing his first letter to the 
Corinthians, he says, ‘‘ Ye are God’s husbandry.” 
There is a marginal rendering in the revised edi- 
tion of the New Testament which makes that sen- — 
tence of Paul clearer yet, which makes him say: 
“Ye are God’s tilled land.” 

What dignity it adds to our human nature when 
we realize that each one of us is a separate and 
individual farm of Almighty God! And we can 
never achieve the highest character and career 
that is possible for us unless we give God the 
right-of-way in the cultivation of the spiritual 
farm in us. For there is a difference between an 
earthly farm and a spiritual farm in this: that it 
is not the fault of the wayside ground for being 
hard, or the stony places for not having much 
earth, or the thorny places that the soil is not free 
of thorn roots. But with us it is different. We 
can by our own attitude mellow the wayside strip 
and create or clean up the rocky places and make 
or mar the thorny nooks. It is possible for us 
to thwart God’s beneficent plan for our cultiva- 
tion, or, on the other hand, aid in the fitting of 
our mental and moral or spiritual soil to bring 
forth flourishing crops to the glory of God and the 
blessing of mankind. 

Thinking of this, no doubt, Robert Louis Ste- 
venson says: ‘‘ No man can truly say that he has 


40 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


made a success of life unless he has written at the 
top of his life-journal, ‘ Enter God.’ ” 

What marvelous romance there is about God’s 
farming of the souls of men and women! God 
meets a man on the way to Damascus full of hate 
and bitterness and fairly revelling in the sorrow 
and ravage of his hands; and after He has plowed 
and harrowed that ravisher and murderer, there 
comes forth a new man—not Saul the persecutor, 
but Paul, the tender-hearted and loving saint. 

God meets a young Englishman and calls him 
forth from a humble home, and though he has only 
modest ability, He so cultivates his mind and heart 
that he is able to bear fruit in blessing millions of 
humble, impoverished men and women in every 
part of the globe. William Booth stands forth at 
the head of his Salvation Army as one of the great- 
est soul-winners of the Christian era. 

God lays His hand on a sodden tinker like John 
Bunyan, or a drunken lawyer like John G. Wooley, 
and cultivates their hearts and minds until the 
desert blossoms as the rose before their feet. God 
meets a prairie girl in Illinois, and takes possession 
of her pure heart and sturdy brain, and step by 
step cultivates her personality, until Frances Wil- © 
lard charms multitudes from their cups and 
quickens a nation’s conscience and gives world- 
wide prohibition a mighty onward impulse toward 
a sober America and a cleaner world. 

God meets a drinking, reckless, baseball player 


THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM AY 


like Billy Sunday, and runs the Gospel plow deep 
into his stony heart, and drives His saving harrow 
over that reckless youth, and a new Billy Sunday, 
fruitful in the conversion of tens of thousands of 
men and women, shines forth. 

God’s farming has all the charm and romance 
of virile life and growth. The great purpose in 
God’s farming is to produce fruit, and over and 
over Christ lays the accent on much fruit. 

Neither a nation nor a man or a woman receives 
God’s approval unless attaining a vigorous life of 
goodness. 

I am in hearty sympathy with the wave of 
thought and feeling sweeping over the world just 
now, seeking to outlaw war. But we must not for- 
get that it must be a righteous peace. Peace may 
be as bad as war if it is not built up and main- 
tained in a spirit of aggressive goodness. John 
Drinkwater, the English poet, was one of the first 
to see that what mankind needed to win out of the 
World War was something far greater than a vic- 
tory of arms on the field of battle. His great 
poem, making an impassioned plea for nobler 
ideals, written before the war ended, still remains 
unanswered. He sings in soul-stirring earnestness: 
“if ae is most Abie ihy r; /\ 

May See ta tect than War’s foulest hell, 

Unless some strong new soul of life 

Rise up to stay— 


To stay, if need be, with the knife— 
The slow, insidious dry-rot of decay, 


42 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Which no whit less than war doth Christ betray; 
Rise up to charge all life with quickened gest 
For things not only better, but the best. 


“ Peace that means laxing of the soul’s upreach, 
Peace that means but an ever-widening breach 
°"Twixt man and man—and so 
’Taixt man and God; 
Peace that means tolerance of obvious wrong, 
Peace that means safety only for the strong, 
Peace that means heedlessness of others’ woes, 
Peace that means chance new burdens to impose, 
Peace that means wealth outsweated from the poor, 
Peace that means God’s perfidious coveriure, 
Peace that means palaces on pigstyes reared, 
Peace that means gold with brave men’s blood besmeared, 
Peace that means virtue offered out for hire, 
Peace that means honor trampled in the mire, 
Peace that means ill division of life’s good, 
Peace that means ill adjustment of life’s load, 
Peace that means brimming bowls and ruined lives, 
Peace that for sake of gain at shame connives, 
Peace that maintains the standards of the past, 
Peace that still leaves the Lord of all outcast, 
That is no peace! 
A mocking parody of peace, 
It shall not last. 
eee OATS Be 
“ Peace without God as base and cornerstone, 
Peace without Right concreted in its frame, 
Peace without Truth up-pillaring its dome, 
Peace without Justice buttressing its walls, 
Peace without Grace as its fair furnishings, 
Peace without Honor as its golden lamp, 
Peace that is all unfortified with Love— 
That is no peace! 


“Get back to God and fundamental Right! 
Build His new house with patience infinite: 
Resolve Life’s vast complexities to ways 
More simple, and exalt the days! 

Let all Life’s warp and woof be interwove 
With gold of noble thought and radiant love; 
So—only so—shall Life’s New Temple stand.” 


That is true of God’s greater farm of the world, 
but it is just as true in God’s farm in your soul and 
mine. 





| 
| 


THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 43 


There is a peace of death that has no worthy life 
and bears no fruit for God or man. 

A year or so ago in a Western city a murder was 
committed, and the man against whom the blame 
stood clearly was arraigned in court. The corpse 
seemed good evidence of a crime, and it looked 
like a certain conviction. The defense, however, 
made a strange demand. It was contended that 
before any man could be proven a murderer it 
would be necessary to prove that the victim had 
ever lived. The court sought for evidence. None 
could be found, and the accused man was set free, 
because there was no proof that Sam Sperling had 
ever lived. Dr. M. S. Rice of Detroit, comment- 
ing on this strange event, says: “‘ That bit of news 
troubled me when I read it, and I carried the item 
in my pocket and have filed it for keeping. I won- 
dered if it would be murder if some one should 
stop me in my all too small way in this world. I 
would hate to die out of such an exacting day as 
is this, and have it said there is absolutely no proof 
available that I had ever lived.” 

Mere refraining from outbreaking sin is not 
enough. It is not enough that no poisonous weeds 
of evil-doing grow on God’s farm in your soul; 
there must be fruit unto the serving and blessing 
of your fellows about you. 

If God has the right of way to run our farms as 
He wills, we shall not only be happy, but our homes 
and our neighbors as well will have happiness in 


44 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


the beautiful and delicious fruits God will grow in 
the fragrant garden of our cultivated hearts. 

Do you remember that wild man of Gadara 
whom Jesus tamed, and when he in gratitude 
wanted to go with Jesus, the Master sent him home 
instead? Dr. J. H. Jowett, one of the sweetest 
Gospel preachers of our time, now transplanted 
into the Heavenly Gardens, comments on that man 
of Gadara in a most helpful way: 


“Just go back home! That was the Master’s counsel. I 
thought He might have made much larger use of a man who 
had been so sensationally healed. I thought He might have 
given him a more imposing stage. He might have sent him 
abroad on some pilgrimage of witness, commanding him to 
go north, south, east and west, to exhibit himself as one of 
the marvelous trophies of the Nazarene. What a phenomenal 
advertisement it would have been! What curiosity he would 
have kindled! In every village how folk would have left 
their fields to gaze upon him, and crowds would have gath- 
ered around him in the towns! But no. The Master told 
him to go quietly home. But what a home-going! He went 
back a new man, renewed in Christ Jesus, and his commis- 
sion was to move about in commonplace ways, a miracle of 
the Lord in ordinary spheres. That is it! He was to be a 
miracle at home.” 


And is it not true some of you will read his further 
comment with blushing face and accusing con- 
science? Dr. Jowett goes on to say: 


“And this is the witness which today is demanded more 
than anything else. It is not spectacular beacons that we 
need; it is just ordinary street lamps. We want the trans- 
figured presence in the common lot. We need lamps of the 
Lord to light up inconspicuous spheres and bring something 
of heavenly radiance into the workshop and the home. And 
especially we want the witness of men and women who have 
been renewed by Jesus, and who take an absolutely new spirit 
into places where hitherto they have been a burden or a 
nuisance. Think of a man going back to his old home with 


THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 45 


a sweetened temper! He has been sour, gruff, irritable, ex- 
plosive, and now Jesus Christ has transformed him. What 
a home-going! 

“The call to multitudes of such people is not to carry their 
sweetened life to the Fiji Islands or to India, but to their 
home and their workshop and their office, where their very 
presence has robbed the day of its sunshine and silenced all 
the songbirds in their neighbors’ hearts. There need be no 
fuss about their witness; there is no necessity for loud talk- 
ing. Everybody knows the difference between a vinegar cask 
and a vine. The vine requires no label, especially when the 
grapes are rich and ripe; we can take and eat them. A fine 
royal mood in place of a bitter mood, and the transfiguration 
of the work of Jesus! It would be a miracle in the home. 

“Or think of the pessimist going back home shining with 
radiant hope. The funereal garb of melancholy has been 
changed for the bright wedding garment of Christian confi- 
dence. Or think of some fretful, complaining spirit turning 
up one day clothed in the garment of praise. What an angel 
in the house! All these may seem to be very commonplace 
ministries as compared with the romance of going to Green- 
land’s icy mountains or India’s coral strand, but this is the 
sort of service which is going to transform the world. Re- 
turn to thy house! Go and make a heaven of home, and 
God’s kingdom will come with mighty power and grace.” 


If we give God the right of way to do heaven’s 
best with our farm, people far away will be blessed 
by our fruits. 

James Maxon Yard, a missionary in China, who 
came home to America to stir the home church of 
Methodism in that great era of sacrifice and devo- 
tion, called in Methodist circles ‘‘ The Centenary,” 
tells in a little poem entitled Rain From America 
Rains on Us what his Chinese people said to him 
when he went back to his mission field in far-away 
West China: 


“TI was just back from the, Centenary. 
They met me at the gateway with fire-crackers and a red 
banner. 
It was covered all over with marks of a Chinese brush pen; 
Every line shone with the glimmer of gold—beautiful. 


46 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


It was a glorious welcome back by friends and neighbors. 
The golden words on the banner said: 

‘The rain from America rains on us’ 
Hospitals for the sick and lame and blind; 
Schools for boys and girls, kindergartens for the kiddies; 
Libraries and movies; places for worship, 
And places for play 

‘Rain from America rains on us. 


pda A | 


And his own happy heart responded: 


“Dry as a desert it sometimes Seems, 

But the seeds of a thousand harvests lie buried here. 
Let the rain flood down 

And the miracle called life— 

The Life more abundant— 

Shall bloom before our eyes.” 

My friend, how about your farm? Has God the 
free right of way there? If not, bid Him enter 
now. Some one, commenting on that great sen- 
tence of Jesus Christ, “‘ Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock,” aptly says that Jesus never stands 
knocking at the door of a sinner’s heart alone. 
Satan stands there also, peering over the Saviour’s 
shoulder, leaning forward, seeking to tempt the 
wavering soul to reject the blessed Master’s tender 
invitation. Satan was a liar from the beginning. 
Do not listen to him. Turn to the Saviour in ten- 
der prayer, and the lying deceiver will flee. Noth- 
ing will put the devil to flight like real prayer. 

A Pennsylvania state trooper tells how he ar- 
rested a merchant suspected of burning his store 
to get the insurance money. The business man 
was indignant. ‘‘ See here, young man,” he told 
the trooper, ‘‘I want you to understand that I stand 
high in this community; I am a Christian and a 


THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM AT 


praying-man.” Promptly the trooper answered, 
“T am a praying man myself; I used to be with 
Billy Sunday. Let’s get down on our knees and 
pray about this.” And that youthful officer prayed 
so earnestly and powerfully that the merchant, 
when it came his turn to pray, acknowledged be- 
fore the Lord in broken sobs his absolute guilt. 
The devil cannot stand honest prayer to God. 
Yield now your mind and heart and all your ran- 
somed powers to be God’s farm forever. Yield to 
Christ and you will realize with Henry Burton that 
the best of all gifts is Jesus Himself: ‘ 


é 
“T do not ask Thee, Lord, for outward sign, 
For portents in the earth or flaming sky; 
It is enough to know that Thou art mine, 
And not far off, but intimately nigh. 


“No burning bush I need to speak Thy name; 
Or call me forward to the newer task; 
Give me a burning heart, with love aflame, 
Which sees Thee everywhere, is all I ask. 


“No pillar-cloud I seek to mark my way 
Through all the windings of the trackless years; 
Thou art my Guide, by night as well as day, 
To choose my path, and hush my foolish fears. 


“T do not look for fiery cloven tongues, 
To tell for me the pentecostal hour; 
The Father's promise for all time belongs 
To him who seeks the Spirit’s quickening power. 


“T do not ask for voices from the sky; 
e The thunder-peal I might not understand; 
But let me hear Thy whisper, ‘It is I! 
Fear not the darkness, child, but take My hand!’ 


“What can I ask but Thine own Self, dear Lord? 
Omniscience and omnipotence are Thine. 
Let but my will with Thy sweet will accord, 
And all Thou hast and all Thou art is mine!” 


IV 


THE YEAST OF CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD 
IN MODERN LIFE 


CuRIst’s STORY OF THE LEAVEN THAT A WOMAN 
Hip IN THREE MEASURES OF MEAL 
“The kingdom of heaven ts like unto leaven, which a 


woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it 
was all leavened.’”—MATTHEW 13: 33. 


aA: HIS is peculiarly the woman’s story among 
the parables of Jesus. True, there are 
other woman’s parables. There is the 
story of the ten virgins—five wise and five foolish 
—but the bridegroom is a dominant figure there. 
Then there is the story of the woman who lost one 
of her ten pieces of silver and went searching and 
sweeping until she found it and then went rejoic- 
ing to her neighbors. But a man can lose money 
as well as a woman, even if he cannot find it as 
well. But here in this story of the leaven we have 
woman as the dominant figure. . 
It is a home-picture staged in the kitchen where, 
in Christ’s day at least, woman reigned supreme. 
Many a time in His happy boyhood at Naza- 
reth, as He played about the floor of the cottage, 


and later when he worked for many years in the 
48 





CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 49 


carpenter shop of Joseph, Jesus had seen His 
sweet mother Mary take out from the flour-bin 
the three measures of meal which was about what 
was needed in an average-sized family such as 
Mary presided over, and watched with a boy’s in- 
terested eye as she put the yeast or the leaven into 
the meal and kneaded it, and worked with it, until 
the dough was ready to set away in a warm, safe 
place to wait while the leaven went on silently 
working through the night until it permeated every 
atom of the meal and brought it all into a har- 
monious whole ready for baking into the appetiz- 
ing, wholesome bread that was to feed and nourish 
her growing family. 

How many times as a boy out in the then new 
pioneer Oregon country when there was not a pub- 
lic bakery within hundreds of miles, only little log 
cabin homes hewed out of the forest, have I 
watched my own mother Mary, as sweet, and pure, 
and wholesome as the mother of Jesus, doing the 
same thing, and watched with all my boyish, 
romantic, curious wonder as the strange life in the 
yeast lifted the dough until it grew larger before 
my eyes and showed strange bubbles in its burst- 
ing sides as the loaves swelled into fulness ready 
for the baking. The work of the yeast in every 
week’s baking in the old tin reflector before the 
open fire, or in the great round skillet oven on the 
broad hearth with its glowing heaps of oak coals 
beneath between its three legs or piled on its lid 


50 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


above it, was as great a miracle to me as the story 
of Jesus feeding the five thousand with the little 
peddler lad’s loaves and fishes. It was the same 
miracle of mysterious, invisible life working mar- 
velous transformations. 

Now Jesus Himself is the leaven, the yeast that 
is to dominate and transform the life of the world, 
to master all humanity and bring it into one great 
harmonious whole. Man has never yet, anywhere, 
at any time in any climate of earth, been able to 
rise by himself. It has always required the leaven 
of Christianity to permeate his being and quicken 
him into upward look and effort. Man left to his 
own devices has always degenerated, gone down 
and not up, grown worse and not better. Man 
needs the divine yeast from heaven which Jesus 
brought to the world. We need, in order to be- 
come good men and women, that this heavenly 
yeast from God which Jesus brought shall enter 
into our lives and dominate and control our entire 
personality. You cannot have a perfect loaf of 
bread unless the yeast brings every atom of the 
meal or flour into cooperation and into submission 
to the yeast. The yeast is life—virile, active, 
working life. Weare the loaf. The yeast of God 
in Christ must control our thinking. ‘“ As a man 
thinketh,” says a wise man of old, ‘‘ so is he.” Our 
thoughts, our planning, the pictures painted in our 
imaginations, must be clean and pure and whole- 
some and Christian. 


CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 51 


Christ must dominate our hearts as well as our 
heads. ‘‘ Out of the abundance of the heart the 
mouth speaketh.” ‘The fountain must not only be 
cleansed, but must be the source—the spontaneous 
source—of pure, sweet water of life that flows 
forth in wholesome speech and conversation. 

This divine yeast must permeate our consciences 
and make the “‘ Thou shalt ” and the “‘ Thou shalt 
not” in the court room of our own souls Chris- 
tian. Then the divine leaven will control our deeds 
and work forth in our habits and rise into a whole- 
some, nourishing loaf of character to feed and 
bless the world. 

But I do not wish to go astray from the thought 
with which I began: that this is peculiarly the 
women’s parable. It is a woman story. 

Christ was a manly man whom the greatest men 
who have ever lived have respected and honored 
and revered. But this is also true, that in a more 
complete sense than any other man in all human 
history, Jesus is a woman’s man. Christ’s relation 
to womanhood is one of the most beautiful things 
in all history and in all literature. This Man who 
had no wife, no sweetheart, no sister, whose whole 
manhood stands out pure and stainless in thought 
as in deed, is the matchless hero of womanhood 
around the world through all time. 

The attitude of Jesus toward womanhood is not 
only beautiful and ideal, but unique among the 
great men of history. He was born into a world 


52 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


where woman was accustomed to submission, to 
take a back seat and hide in obscurity, and He 
threw open the gates to every noble avenue of 
career for her expression of her noblest self in 
blessing the world. 

Jesus learned to respect and revere womanhood 
in the arms of His sweet mother, Mary, and He 
welcomed and blessed every woman He touched 
throughout His life. 

Good women like Martha and Mary of Beth- 
any; like Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s 
steward; and Salome, the mother of James and 
John, adored Him; and poor unfortunate women 
like Mary Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven 
devils, followed Him to the Cross and beyond, as 
the day-star of their lives. Poor, sinful women 
of the streets, like the woman who came unbidden 
to Simon’s dinner and broke her precious vase of 
ointment to perfume Christ’s head, who wetted His 
feet with her tears and wiped them with her flow- 
ing hair, and that other woman brought to Jesus 
in the Temple on the way to be stoned to death, 
went out from His presence to love and worship 
Him evermore as the God who had lifted them into 
life and hope. 

And we must never allow it to be overlooked that 
Christian civilization and all the glorious uplifting 
of humanity through the Christian leaven that has 
transformed the world, has been largely the work 
of Christian womanhood. I know all the big 





CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 53 


names in the Acts of the Apostles are men’s names 
—Paul and Peter and John and James and so on— 
but behind them was a multitude of unnamed 
women. | 

I quite agree with Nixon Waterman when he 
sings: 


“T calculate I’ve been around about as much as anybody, 
ees all the ways of folks, aw after purty careful 
stuay, 
It’s my conclusion that the men secure *bout all the credit 
due ’em, 
While women as a rule don't get the praise that should be 
comin’ to ’em, 


“Test take the leaders o’ the world—they'll tell you in some 

way or other 

The strength that made ’em win their fame was borrowed 
from a wife or mother. 

An’ if the truth is ever known—the hull truth—how they 
got so noted— 

Jest lots of statues made fer men will be rebuilt an’ petti- 
coated. 


mi AA beta pe all women folks are perfect, an’ I never 
said 1t, 

Yet I believe they're doin’ good for which the men are get- 

tin’ credit. 

An’ when I see a monument with some man’s figure up 

above it, 

I sie that jest as like as not a woman’s at the bottom 

of it.” 

Let us never forget that the whole history of 
Christian civilization is in a very large degree 
epitomized in this parable of the leaven. It is very 
largely true that Christian womanhood took the 
Christ yeast and hid it in the meal of humanity, 
and that she deserves credit for an immense pro- 
portion of the good it has accomplished. As the 


leaven has permeated the dough of human life, cer- 


ts 


ae 


54 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


tain great evils have been thrown off and destroyed, 
and Christian women have figured largely in all 
such reform. Take the overthrow of slavery. 
Men’s names, mostly, are inscribed on the roll of 
fame; but what multitudes of Christian women 
stood behind them in the shadows with flaming 
hearts lifted to God and inspired their men for 
their work. | 

On one occasion Wendell Phillips was due to 
speak for human freedom in Boston at a time of 
great bitterness, when his life had been threat- 
ened, and he was going out to face a mob that 
would make most men cower. He went into the 
bedroom of his home to say good-by to Mary Phil- 
lips, his wife, who was an invalid, and she hid her 
fears back in her heart, and reaching out her thin 
white hands she took his big hand in her delicate 
fingers and lifted it to her lips and said, ‘‘ Wendell, 
don’t shilly-shally.”” Women like that bred and 
inspired the heroes of that age. 

Among the great leaders of that epoch that tried 
strong men’s souls was Henry Ward Beecher. But 
he, himself, would have been first to say that he 
did not do one tithe as much to destroy African 
slavery as did his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
by her powerful novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, that 
captured the imagination of multiplied thousands 
of men and women hitherto indifferent, and roused 
the country as sermons and lectures and political 
campaigns had never been able to do. 


CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 55 


And then came the rising swell of the yeast of 
Christian thought and feeling against the inde- 
scribable evils of the open liquor saloon. Men 
fought, too; the world will never forget men like 
John B. Gough and Neal Dow and John G. 
Wooley, John P. St. John and Howard Russell, 
and Purly Baker who has just gone to be with 
God; but the fairest, sweetest name in all that list 
of heroes is Frances Willard, who was born out of 
the woman’s crusade and whose career was a 
benediction from heaven. The charm of her elo- 
quence, matched by the purity of her soul and 
given irresistible power by the burning passion of 
her Christlike enthusiasm for humanity, lifted the 
whole campaign into a higher realm of discussion 
and prepared the way for the united team work of 
the Christian churches in the Anti-saloon League, 
which brought victory to the temperance hosts in 
the constitutional prohibition of the foul liquor 
traffic. 

We must remember in recounting the victories 
of the Christian Church in the world, that woman- 
hood deserves the major credit, for she has been 
in the majority and has furnished far more than 
one-half of all the fighting soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
Far more than one-half of all the membership of 
the Christian Churches has always been and is 
today furnished by women. The Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, at its last General Conference held 
in Springfield, Massachusetts, reports that among 


56 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


its many millions of members sixty-two out of 
every hundred are women, and that percentage 
would no doubt run very closely through all the 
Churches, and the majority of women grows in im- 
portance when we consider that an army is power- 
ful only in proportion to the number of active sol- 
diers ready to be thrown on the firing line. There 
the women far surpass the men. No man who has 
been pastor of large churches through many years 
but knows that when the call to colors is sounded 
for prayer-meeting night, and in great evangelistic 
Campaigns, a pastor counts himself happy indeed 
if he can marshal on the firing line half as many 
men as he has women. 

And on Mothers’ Day we do not fail to record 
with thanksgiving the service of multitudes of 
noble Christian women often held in reserve by the 
duties connected with home keeping and child- 
hood’s care. 

Next to the name of God comes that of mother, 

to most if not all of us. When 
“God thought to give the sweetest thing 
In His almighty power 


Lo. earth 58 = 
* * kK Kk * * kK Kk 


He moved the gates of heaven apart 
And gave to earth—a mother.” 

No other class of people in this world has done 
so much to spread the yeast of the Christian faith 
and hope and life in the heart of humanity as 
Christian mothers. In memory of my own mother, 


CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 57 


who still lives on earth in joyous fellowship with 
Christ, and who carries her eighty-six years of 
faithful service as a crown of imperishable glory, 
I salute in sincerest honor and reverence every 
Christian mother in all the world. 

There is no man eloquent enough to tell ade- 
quately of the beauty, the courage, the fidelity, the 
glory of holy motherhood. If I were asked to put 
a wreath of glory upon the brow of the one per- 
sonage of the Bible roll of heroes whom, aside 
from Jesus Christ, I count most worthy, on what 
brow do you think I would place it? Not Abra- 
ham or Moses or David or Joshua. Not Elijah 
or Elisha or Isaiah or Daniel. Not Paul or Peter 
or John—none of these, greatly as I admire and 
revere them. But I would go straight to that par- 
ticular throne in heaven where today sits Rizpah, 
dear old faithful Rizpah, who, when her sons were 
taken prisoners in battle and crucified, and were 
left to waste away on their crosses, wrapped her- 
self in her shawl of sackcloth upon the rocks near 
them and remained on guard for one hundred and 
eighty days and nights. From May until October 
she kept the vultures from their dead bodies by 
day, and with blazing torch kept the hyenas and 
the lions from them by night, until at last her story 
reached the ears of David and roused his poetic 
soul to a worthy response, and the wasted bodies 
of her dead were taken down and buried in honor 
and she could rest. On Rizpah’s brow in the holy 


58 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


name of motherhood everywhere would I place the 
noblest crown for human heroism. 

Great responsibility rests on the shoulders of 
Christian womanhood today. God never gives 
great blessing or privilege to any one without a 
corresponding duty. 

The last half-century has been like a miracle in 
its opening of the gates of opportunity to women. 
When I joined the campaign to fight for woman 
suffrage, there was then not a country on earth 
where a woman could vote as to the government 
that should rule over her. Today woman suffrage 
is practically universal. Even the Turk has given 
suffrage to his women. ‘There was not in those 
earlier days a single great university open on equal 
terms to boys and girls. Now it is all changed. 
In those days only three or four means of earning 
a livelihood were open for women, and they were 
very poorly paid; but all that is passing away, and 
equal wages for equal work will soon be the rule 
everywhere. 

What is womanhood going to do with the sharp 
tools of life? Thoughtful, earnest men today are 
hoping and praying that Christian women bring 
into the meal of our political and civil life the 
Christ leaven, the yeast from God, and transform 
it into a new and wholesome world—make the 
world safe for humanity. 

I once spoke in Tremont Temple in Boston, 
many years ago, on the same platform with Fred- - 


CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 59 


erick Douglass, in a great woman-suffrage meet- 
ing, and I remember Douglass said, ‘“‘ You say we 
must not bring women into the dirty pool of poli- 
tics. Who made the pool dirty? There have 
been no women playing in it.” 

The women of America have it in their power 
to transform politics. If they will put the virile 
yeast of Christian faith and righteous purpose into 
the dough of our time, they can leaven the whole 
lump. They can make it impossible for the foul 
liquor saloon ever to come back. They can drive 
the prize-fight off the platform forever, and they 
can bring to the official life of the nation a new 
and holy view of public office and service that will 
make marvelously for the righteousness and purity 
of modern life. 

In the name of all Christ has meant to woman- 
hood through all the centuries for nearly two thou- 
sand years, I call on every woman to be a sincere 
Christian. And I cannot but feel that peculiarly 
in these days Christ in a new earnestness is stand- 
ing knocking at the door of every woman’s heart 
where He had not already been made welcome, 
and is saying tenderly, pleadingly, “‘ Behold, I 
stand at the door and knock.” And if you will 
open the door and welcome Him, He will come in 
and make your personality and life a great and 
glorious benediction from heaven on all the life of 
your time. 


V 


THE HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE. 
PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 


“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden 
in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy 
he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that 
field. Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man 
that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and having 
found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all 
that he had and bought it.’—MattTHEWw 13: 44-46. 

HE scenes portrayed in these stories are 

very suggestive to the imagination. It 

was long ago, before the days of trust 
companies or banks or building and loan associa- 
tions, when men and women hid their gold and sil- 
ver and precious treasures in the earth for safe 
keeping. So, as the years and the centuries 
passed, many treasures were lost. A man or a 
woman dies suddenly, without disclosing the hid- 
ing-place, and the treasures go back again to be a 
part of the unowned treasures of mother earth 
which belong to whoever finds them. 

Let us try to make the old story live again be- 
fore our minds and yield its divine lesson. There 
was a rich farmer in the fertile Jordan valley 
beyond the Jordan river from Jerusalem, the - 


Mecca of Jewish worship and power, who had 
60 


HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 61 


many fields and was rich in flocks and herds. Not 
far away from the lordly home of gracious old 
Barzillai, the friend of David, there lived a poor 
man, by the name of John Seeker, in a very hum- 
ble little cottage. Seeker was poor in everything 
except his house full of children. He had the 
Psalmist’s blessing of a “ quiver full” of children. 
But it was very hard to find enough to feed them 
all. However, John Seeker was a hard worker and 
was often employed on the wide-reaching farm of 
Barzillai. 

So it happened that one morning he was sent to 
plow up a field that had been lying out for pasture 
for a long time. It was a stony, rough field, and 
when Barzillai sent John Seeker out there to plow, 
he laughed and said, “ John, I am going to give 
you a hard job today. I want you to take the 
heaviest yoke of oxen on the place and go over 
to that stony pasture stretching up beyond the 
creek and begin plowing it up. My grandfather 
used to live over there, and all that pasture was 
cultivated; but when my father came over here 
and built the new house where I live, the buildings 
were all moved away, and that field was turned 
into pasture and has not been plowed for nearly 
a hundred years. It has had a long rest and ought 
to bring a good crop.” 

So John Seeker took his oxen and plow and went 
to work at the old field. The strip where he began 
to plow was so rough and rocky that. constant at- 


62 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


tention to the plow was required lest it break on 
a big stone. So John Seeker’s eyes were contin- 
ually glued to the plow and the soil he was turn- 
ing up to the sunlight for the first time in nearly a 
century. Sometimes the point of the plow would 
strike a stone too large to overturn, and he would 
cry ‘“‘ Whoa!” to the oxen, lift the plow over, and 
start in anew on the other side. 

Suddenly the point of the plow went under a 
good sized stone, and John Seeker was just puck- 
ering his lips for ‘“‘ Whoa!”’ when the stone up- 
heaved and the quick eye of the plowman caught 
a glimpse of a treasure-box beneath, a box full of 
gold and silver and precious jewels. Then he did 
shout ‘‘ Whoa!” with a vengeance. He fell on his 
knees by the open treasure-box and dug out the 
clods and loosened dirt that had fallen in and 
feasted his eyes on more money and jewels than 
he had ever seen before in all his life. 

Now John Seeker thought quickly. He knew 
that according to the law these hidden treasures 
belonged to the man who owned the field. So he 
heaved the big, stone cover back into place and 
covered it over carefully. It was about time to 
stop for dinner, so he drove his oxen in to water 
and feed and went at once to see Barzillai. When 
he met Barzillai he said, “‘ What will you take for 
that oid field where I am plowing? ” 

“Why, John, what do you want with that field?” - 

‘Well, it is very low where I live and there is 


HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 63 


a good, high building place and a good spring of 
water in that old field across the creek, and it 
would give more room for my children to work at 
home.” 

“Well, Seeker,” said Barzillai, ‘you are a hard 
worker and I like to have you near where I can 
have your help. If you can raise that much, I 
will sell you that field for five hundred shillings.” 

It was a big sum to poor John Seeker, but he 
just had to have that field, for he had seen enough 
in that treasure box to make him rich for life. So 
John said, ‘“‘ Barzillai, I hope I can raise it. I am 
going to try. Let me off for a day or so and I will 
see what I can do.” 

‘“‘ All right, John. Good luck to you,” laughed 
good-natured Barzillai as John Seeker hurried 
away. Into the village he went. He sold his 
home, his cow, and his donkey. John and his 
wife then dug up what little savings they had hid- 
den away. They stripped themselves of every- 
thing they had in the world, until at last he had the 
five hundred shillings and went back and bought 
the old field with its hidden treasure. 

That is the story Jesus gave us. Let Ruth 
Wooley Laws guide us to His meaning. 


“ Treasure there was, hid away in a field, 
In a stony field and rough; 
An unknown hand had buried there, 
And the rocks concealed the stuff. 
A man came walking through the field, 
On other errands bent— 
From the sun, a beam; from the earth, a gleam; 


64 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


He knelt, he dug, content. 

Through the streets of a neighboring town he went, 
Crying his goods for sale, 

And when eventide came softly down, 

He had sold his all—the field was his, 

And the treasure he had found. 


“ He lifted the treasure from the earth, 
Free from the dirt and the sand; 
He drew the gold and the jewels out, 
And held them in his hand, 
He said to himself as he stood in the light, 
And watched the wondrous glow: 
‘Who would have dreamed, from this stony field 
To have taken a treasure so?’ 
The field was stony, the dirt was grim, 
But rare were the jewels held therein. 


“Treasure there was, hid away in a heart, 
In a stony heart and rough, 
An unseen hand had buried there, 
And sin concealed the stuff. 
Men went by and touched the sleeve. 
Of the outer garments worn, 
Or stumbled over the rocks within 
And passed on bruised and torn. 
The years went on and no one knelt, 
And no one dug the scum, 
And the rocks still waited a lifting hand, 
And the field was still unowned. 
Until one day came a heavenly beam, 
Then from that heart a feeble gleam, 
And the Master paid the blood-bought price, 
And that heart was all his own. 


“ He lifted the treasure from the earth, 
From flesh and dust and clod, 
And back to the treasure house he took 
The jewel home to God. 
And he said to himself, as he stood in the light 
That streamed from the throne above, 
“I knew that in that stony ground 
There was treasure to be found, 
Within was light—without was night, 
And sin was all around; 
But up above—all-seeing love 
And mercy doth abound!” 


And such glorious treasures are waiting to be 


et 


a 


HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 65 


dug out of their hiding place in every land on earth 
today. 

My dear friend, Dr. William L. Stidger, himself 
a great treasure-hunter for Christ, tells this story 
of his travels in the Philippines: 


“In the Philippines the romance of a church is followed 
always by the Christian romance of individuals; romances 
of the moral regeneration of men which, in the hands of a 
more skilled writer, would make material for a George 
Eliot’s Tito in Romola, or a Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, 

“There was Thomas Altemara. What a spiritual-looking 
young Filipino he is! It had lines—that face—that thrilled 
me, as sO many of these brown people do have. 

“Thomas comes of that small race they call the Ibinags. 
They live up north on the main Island of Luzon. There are 
only about one hundred thousand of them left. Other tribes 
and races are crowding them out of the little valley they 
have occupied for centuries. 

“ Altemara came to Dr. Huddleston as a cook. When he 
came into this missionary’s home he asked but one thing. 

“Dr. Huddleston told me this story one morning, during 
the Filipino Conference. A boy had just testified in a few 
thrilling, brief words. Then Dr. Huddleston arose. 

“«Ten years ago that boy, who has just testified, came to 
my home as a cook. He said to me that morning, “I have 
just one request to make.” ‘ What is that?’ I asked him. 

“<«« That I do not want to have ‘ Protestanti’ preached 
to me. I am a Catholic, and I know what I want. I havea 
Bible of my own, and I know what to do. I do not want 
you to interfere with my religion.” 

“<* All right,’ I said to him. ‘All we want now is a cook. 
We'll let the rest take care of itself.’ 

“*T made just one provision, as Thomas will remember,’ 
and the big man smiled back at his “ boy in Christ” across 
the church. It was a beautiful friendship; as beautiful in a 
way as that between a father and a son. 

“* That provision was that he should kneel with us in our 
family worship each morning. That would not interfere 
with his religion. He agreed. We lived over the church, 
and each Sunday Thomas could hear the children singing. 
I used to see him stand still to listen.’ 

“There was an electric atmosphere in the church as he 
continued this remarkable human-interest story, with the 
subject of it sitting back in the rear seat, embarrassed to 
tonfusion, modest fellow that he was. 


66 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“* A year and a half later,’ continued the missionary to 
that tense, waiting crowd in the Conference, ‘Thomas came 
to me and said, “I want to ask your forgiveness for what 
I said when I first came to be your cook. I am ashamed. 
I want you to baptize me into your church and your religion, 
for I have watched your lives and I want that kind of a 
church.” Then he said, “ And I want one of those papers ! 4 

wi why Sal, » Ine OL what papers, my boy?” 

sai atk replied, “One of those papers so I can preach.” 

“*T found that what he wanted was an exhorter’s. license, 
so I gave it to the boy. He has been preaching ever since. 
He has won thousands to Christ. 

“*But the test came a year ago. He was offered an op- 
portunity to go to America to school.’ 

“Then the big man, with tear-red eyes, turned to that 
crowd of young Filipinos and said, ‘A thing that every boy 
here would give his right arm to do is to go to America.’ 
They smiled back an affirmative. He continued: ‘But 
Thomas came to me and said, “I shall not go!” 

““Why?’ I asked him, surprised. 

“*“ Because,’ said he, “I am the only man in my race of 
a hundred thousand Ibinags who has been called to preach. 
If I go to America, I may forget my people. I may get 
proud, as I have seen many of my kind do. I will stay with 
them. Five years with them may do much. God tells me to 
do this. I must stay with my people.” 

“<Then that boy forgot that he was talking with me. He 
forgot my presence even, and lifted his head as if in prayer 
and said, “ Yes, dear, dear God, I must stay with my people. 
They need me so.” 

“*And is it any wonder that that boy who just testified 
in this meeting is literally winning souls by the hundreds 
among his people?’ asked the big missionary. 

“ That was the end of the meeting, but not the end of that 
lad’s story in my heart, for there is in that lad the making 
of another Livingstone to the Filipinos.” 


Then Jesus tells this other story of the pearl of 
great price to bring the message of salvation still 
more individually and personally to our minds. 

Pearls are the last word in the East to tell the 


most precious thing that can be said about a 


treasure. 
I was reading only the other day a story carried 


— ee eS ee 


HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 67 


by the Associated Press from Delhi, India. The 
story told how the Viceroy had invested his High- 
ness, the Nawab of Bahawalpur, with ruling pow- 
ers. The Nawab is only nineteen years old, but 
for the occasion he wore the famous pearls of 
Bahawalpur, which are said to be worth two hun- 
dred million dollars. But the pearl of great price 
which Jesus speaks of in this story is worth in- 
finitely more than the jewels of this Indian Nawab. 
The pearl which Jesus describes is the salvation of 
the soul—the forgiveness of our sins, the cleansing 
of the conscience, the peace of mind and heart that 
no one can bestow save Jesus Christ our Saviour. 

Many years ago, at a crowded meeting in one 
of the largest churches in New York City the 
Superintendent of a famous Rescue Mission, a tall, 
fine-looking man, was asked to speak. He told of 
the growth of the Mission and of the work it tried 
to do, and then he closed with these words: 

“T was asked today as I came into this church, ‘ Have 
you ever seen a bad man become a good man?’ Yes, my 
friends, I have. Sixteen years ago a man was leaning against 
a beer barrel in a saloon in New York. His coat was in 
tatters. His shoes would hardly hold together. He had 
not a cent in his pocket or a friend in the world. He had 
broken his mother’s heart, he had deserted his wife. No 
door was open to him—not even that of the hospital, for he 
was not sick; nor that of the morgue, for he was not dead. 
Some one in the saloon said to him: ‘ You'd better go up 
to Forty-third street. There’s a mission up there that you 
might work for a night’s lodging!’ The man went, and 
reeled into the mission half drunk. Before he went out 
again, twenty-four hours later, he had got hold of a Hand 
that helped him to his feet. He had heard words of hope— 


of Him who came to seek not the righteous, but sinners. He 
had taken new heart, and begun a new upward climb. All 


68 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


that was sixteen years ago. Some of you know that man 
today. All of you have heard him speak.” 


Then as the Superintendent sat down the great 
audience realized that they had listened to the re- 
sult of Christ’s forgiving love in the life of that 
superintendent himself. Samuel H. Hadley found 
the pearl of great price and sold all he had, his 
rags and his sins, and his self-will, and bought the 
peace that passeth understanding. ‘The pearl of 
great price made him one of God’s saints. 

Men and women of every race and clime have 
found this priceless pearl. 

A former Mohammedan priest named Moham- 
med Allah, who served during the World War in 
France, wrote to an English paper this story of his 
conversion to Christ: 


“T was ordained from Mecca a high priest. During the 
war I came over to England to act as teacher for the men 
from northeast India. . . . One day I saw a gentleman in 
a soldier's uniform marching across my camp. I stopped 
him, and said: 

“*Do you know this is a Mohammedan camp? Where 
are you going?’ He smiled. 

“T said, ‘What is your purpose here today?’ He pulled 
out his card. He was Gipsy Smith. ‘Are you an officer?’ 
I asked. 

““T am a chaplain. I came to talk with your people.’ 

“* What about?’ 

“* About Christ.’ 

“*Do you know I can prosecute you without a trial?’ 
The man laughed. 

“Will you stop laughing?’ 

_“ He answered, ‘That’s my way.’ Oh, my brothers and 
sisters, if every Christian would carry a smile on his face 
he would convert somebody. He said, ‘May I shake hands 
with you?’ 

“*No, sir. If I touch you, I’ll have to bathe fourteen 
different times.’ 


 —— a 


HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 69 


““May I ask you one question? Has Mohammed been 
dead?’ 

cee > 

“* Has he risen from the dead?’ 

“*No, but we expect him to set up his kingdom one thou- 
sand years later,’ 

“* Never mind about that. Do you believe that Christ has 
been dead?’ 

6.46 Yes.’ 

“*Well, Christ has risen from the dead and is today a 
living Saviour,’ 

“T was angry. ‘Will you take your Christ and leave at 
once?’ I demanded. He said good-by and started away, 
then he came back and left a little pamphlet on the table. 
I watched him go. I have seen millions of people, but I 
haven’t seen any one like him. He had a different look. 
ee he was gone, I began to think, What kind of a man 
is he: 

“T picked up the pamphlet and began to read. It was 
nothing else but an interpretation of John 3:16. I began to 
study. For seven months I studied. Every time I went to 
the table John 3:16 was standing before me. When I 
preached to my people, it was standing there. One night I 
put my rug down and started to kneel down toward Mecca. 
It was twelve o'clock at night. There seemed to be a great, 
strange light in camp. I got up and asked the people if they 
saw any light. They didn’t. I thought I was imagining it. 
I went back the second time. The light was greater than 
before, and there was a voice ringing in my soul, ‘Don’t 
pray toward Mecca any more. Christ is the Son of God.’ 

“T went to Gipsy Smith, and I said, ‘I want to shake 
hands. I do believe Christ is the Son of God. He said, 
‘Let us pray.’ I have heard praying, but none like that. 

“Do you know, there is only one religion that brings 
peace and harmony in the human heart? It is the religion of 
Jesus Christ.” 


My friends, this pearl of great price which has 
brought peace and joy to hundreds of millions dur- 
ing the last two thousand years, is for you here 
and now as you read. You need not wait until 
some special time of revival. The ever living 
Christ who told this story is still knocking at the 
door of sinful hearts, even at your heart. Rise up 


70 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


and let Him in, and sorrow and sin shall be cast 
out, the richest treasures of the heart of God shall 
be yours forever, and there shall be set on your 
breast the pearl of great price, and you will be able 
to sing with Albert Fitzgerald: 


AN “ Nearer, still nearer, lowly I bend, 

4 Did ever sinner have such a Friend? 
This friend its Jesus, bless His dear name, 
Yesterday, always, forever the same. 


“ Nearer, still nearer, Sun of my soul, 
Oh, the sweet rapture, I am made whole. 
Cleansed by the blood, free from all sin, 
Fatthful till death, a crown I shall win. 


“ Nearer, still nearer, sweetly I sing, 
Higher and higher, mounting on wing. 
Love so amazing, passing belief, 
Precious while living, thrice precious in death. 


“ Nearer, still nearer, Heaven at last, 
Earth with its follies forever now past, 
Jesus, the precious, appears to my view. 
Listen, dear sinner, He died to save you.” 


VI 
SALVATION COMES THROUGH PRAYER: 


CHRIST’S STORIES OF THE MIDNIGHT FRIEND, THE 
IMPORTUNATE WIDOW, AND THE PHARISEE 
AND THE PUBLICAN 


“And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a 
friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto 
him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine 
1s come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to 
set before him; and he from within shall answer and 
say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my chil- 
dren are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee? 
I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him 
because he 1s his friend, yet because of his importunity 
he will arise and give him as many as he needeth. And 
mice ie you, Ask and it shall be given you.’—LUKE 


“And he spake a parable unto them to the end that 
they ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, 
There was in a city a judge, who feared not God, and 
regarded not man: and there was a widow in that city; 
and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine 
adversary. And he would not for awhile: but after- 
ward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, 
nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, 
I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual 
coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous 
judge saith. And shall not God avenge his elect, that 
cry to him day and night, and yet he is long suffering 
over them? I say unto you, that he will avenge them 
speedily.”—LUKE 18: 1-8. 

“And he spake also this parable unto certain who 
trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set 
all others at nought: Two men went up into the temple 
to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, 

71 


72 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extor- 
tioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, I 
fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. 
But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up 
so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his 
breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me, a simner, 
I say unto you, This man went down to his house justi- 
fied rather than the other: for every one that exalteth 
himself shall be humbled; but he that humbleth himself 
shall be exalted.’—LuKE ‘18: 9-14, 


HE Bible is a marvelous book of prayer. 
Prayers of Moses and Joshua; prayers 
of David and Solomon; prayers of Elijah 

and Elisha; prayers of Daniel and Nehemiah; 
prayers of Jesus; prayers of Stephen; prayers of 
the hundred and twenty in the upper room that 
brought Pentecost; prayers of Paul. How the 
prayers of the Bible live in the hearts of good men 
and good women all around the globe, as inde- 
structible and full of life as the Bible itself! The 
Bible is unique. There is no other book like it. 
Bishop Charles H. Fowler in one of those bursts 
of irresistible eloquence of which he was capable, 
said: 

“ Marvelous book! Itself a parallel of every miracle and 
deliverance recorded in its pages. Proscribed and im- 
prisoned? The angel of deliverance illumined the darkness, 
stripped off the shackles and awed into conscious obedience 
the self-opening doors. Exiled, it has created a new king- 
dom and shifted the center and balance of power. Carried 
away captive, it has broken down rival altars and over- 
thrown false gods till the right-of-way has been accorded to 
it by friend and foe. Sold into bondage by false brethren, 
it has captured the hearts of its masters and ascended the 
throne of dominion. Driven into the sea, it has gone over 
dry-shod, seeing its enemies overwhelmed in the flood and 


itself singing the glad song of deliverance. Burned on the 
public square by the public executioner, it has risen phoenix- 


SALVATION COMES THROUGH PRAYER 3 


like and floated away in triumph, wearing the smoke of its 
own funeral pyre as a flag of victory. 

“Scourged from city to city, it has gone through the 
capitals of the civilized world, leaving behind it a trail of 
light attesting its divine authority. Cast into the lepers’ 
pesthouse, it has purified the scales of contagion, restored 
the soft, pink skin of smiling infancy, quickened the energies 
of romping youth, and re-created the sinews of heroic man- 
hood. Betrayed by a kiss, it has stood erect in the calm 
majesty of eternity, amid the swarming minions of its 
enemies. Nailed to a felon’s cross, it has illumined the dark- 
ness by the radiance of its own glory, and transformed the 
summits of sacrifice into a throne of universal judgment. 
Sealed into the gloom of a sepulcher, it has come forth with 
the echoing footsteps of Almighty God, rising to dominion 
over all intelligences. Marvelous book, full ‘of divine life 
and power! No one can touch even the hem of its garment 
without being healed. No one can come near enough even 
to stone it without being blessed. It stands alone, without 
a rival; even its enemies themselves being judges.” 


And of all the Bible, there is nothing more in- 
teresting, more significant to the salvation of our 
souls, than this wonderful theme of prayer we are 
to study through these beautiful stories which Jesus 
Himself tells us. 

This first story of the midnight friend was told 
in connection with the giving of the most famous 
prayer in human history, commonly known as the 
‘*‘ Lord’s Prayer.” 

One of the disciples had requested Jesus to teach 
them how to pray, and after our Lord had repeated 
to them that most oft-repeated of all prayers, He 
told them this story of the midnight friend, and 
followed it with the assurance which has comforted 
the hearts of innumerable millions of men and 
women through all the ages since that time: “ Ask, 
and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; 


74 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every 
one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh 
findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be 
opened. And of which of you that is a father shall 


his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a 


fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if 
he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? 
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your 
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that 
ask him? ” 

Is not the supreme message of this story of the 
midnight friend this great truth that prayer is not 
a form but a force? Ask and you receive; seek 
and you find; knock and the door opens. Wat 
Tyler has written a poem on prayer that would 
do for a spiritual biography of very many of us: 


“There was a man who prayed— 
Prayer is an asking of the Infimte— 
And he asked for ie things. 

Life was for him, 
As you and me, 
A bit of beach 
Beside a sea, 
Where all the tides come tumbling in. 
If one seek well, 
Amid the sand, 
Gems may be found, 
Wealth, Power, Fame, 
And all the rest, 
Are sparkling stones 
The sea brings in— 
Torn from its caves, 
Laughed up by the waves, 
Spilled on the sands, 
When all the tides come flashing in. 


): 
f\ 
£A 


Oe ee eee 


SALVATION COMES THROUGH PRAYER 75 


For these he prayed— 
Prayer is an asking gifts from God— 
For wealth he prayed; 
For love he prayed; 
For health; success; for fame; 
For space to strut 
And preen himself, 
While all the world admired. 
And many of his prayers were heard. 
Men approved, nor 
Did God deny. 


II 


“ There was a man who prayed— 
Prayer is crying in the night— 
And need had he for prayer, 
For all his beach— 
His little stretch 
Of sand and sea— 
Was tempest torn, 
Howled with the storm, 
And all the tides were ebbing out. 
For help he prayed; 
For hope he prayed; 
For dawn he prayed; 
And asked, and asked, 
And asked with tears, 
That death might spare 
A life he loved. 
Many of his prayers were heard, 
But not the last. 
That was but added 
To all the wails 
Thai filled the might. 
Thus he shivered through the storm 
Till morning came, 
With hope, and he 
Knelt down with thanks 
Upon a beach, 
Tideless and bare, 
Gray and desolate. 


Til 


“And now the man still prays— 
Prayer is the heartbeat of the soul— 
Not fame he craves, 
Nor wealth, nor power, 
Nor peace desires. 
(Worthless are gems, 


76 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


The one he loved is gone.) 
Nor safety begs, 
Ah! One fears death but once. 
So he moves on 
His tiny stretch 
Of beach beside 
An endless sea, 
And notes not that the tides come in, 
And cares not that the tides go out. 
But prays 
That he may tear 
The evil from 
His heart before 
It spawns in deeds; 
That he may think 
Kind things to do 
Before itt is too late. 
And all his prayers have answer quick— 
Almost before he prays. 
The prayer that holds 
All prayer in his, 
And thus he prays: 
That He who grants, 
And he who asks, 
And prayer itself, 
May all be one.” 


Then we have this second story of the unright- 
eous judge and the importunate widow who in her 
helplessness does not give up but with patient per- 
sistence brings her cause before the judge who can 
save her if he will, until at last because of her per- 
sistence he yields and she wins her case. So Jesus 
declares that if we will not weary in our prayers, 
but will patiently and persistently bring our peti- 
tions to our heavenly Father, He will give us 
abundantly all we need. Are there not many who 
fail at this very point of persistence in prayer? At 
a revival season when many are pledging them- 
selves to Bible reading and family worship you set 


SALVATION COMES THROUGH PRAYER 177 


up the family altar and for a time how it sweet- 
ened every opening day! But when the busy sea- 
son came on and your business pressed heavily, 
you thought you had not time for family prayers, 
and so the altar that would have blessed your 
home as the Ark of God once blessed the home of 
Obed-edom so long ago, fell into ruins of neglect. 
It is the attitude of persistent opening of the heart 
to God, giving love and seeking the revelation of 
God’s own heart for our peace and comfort, that 
makes prayer the highway of salvation to our souls. 

Lowell B. Hazzard has written a poem with spir- 
itual insight about that attitude on the part of 
Mary of Bethany who loved to sit at the feet of 
Jesus and about whom Jesus said to her sister 
Martha: ‘“ Mary hath chosen the good part, which 
shall not be taken away from her.”” Hazzard gives 
us a glimpse into the Master’s heart and into 
Mary’s prayerful attitude which won that immortal 
commendation: 


“* Art hungry, Lord? 
For if thowrt hungry and wilt say the word, 
I can bring food in plenty, wine and gratn. 
Fruit from the garden, and a lamb new slain, 
And in a moment I can spread the board. 
Art hungry, Lord? 


“* Art hungry, Lord?’ 
The Master laid His fingers on her hair, 
Thoughtful a moment let them linger there, 
And then with grave, sweet voice, ‘ Aye, Mary, aye, 
Though I have meat to eat you know not of, 
Hungry—for love! 


78 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“ Hungry—for love! 
Months grow to years, and centuries roll away, 
And still mankind is busy, day by day, 
Building the Master houses, stone or wood, 
Giving him gifts as seemeth to them good, 
In lieu of love. 


“In lieu of love! 
He takes the gifts, for they are freely given. 
And with a strange, sad smile He waits in heaven, 
Waits till mankind shall choose the better part, 
And opening wide the portals of its heart, 
Shall give him love.” 

May God hasten that glad day! And we must 
each one of us remember that we are a part of the 
world and that it is made up of people such as 
we are, and we are in duty bound. to so live that, 
if all other men and women were like us, God 
would find perfect peace and happiness in the heart 
of the world. 

But, some one will say, both these stories seem 
to be for people who are already acquainted with 
God. Iama sinner. My life has lost its purity 
even from childhood. All my life I have been 
going away from God. HowcanIpray? Ah, my 
friend, we have a third story, the very best story 
of all, reserved for you—the story Jesus tells 
about the Pharisee and the publican who went up 
the same hour to the temple and were praying at 
_the same time. Get the story into your heart. 
' The Pharisee prays with himself and to himself. 
~God was not there. It was a self-righteous, self- 
congratulatory prayer. In a formal way he 
thanked God that he had so many negative vir- 


SALVATION COMES THROUGH PRAYER 79 


tues and was so much better than this poor pub- 
lican who with bowed head was smiting his breast 
with his hand in an agony of repentance. He did 
not really thank God, he congratulated God that 
he had such a swell worshiper as he was. Alas! 
how many poor, lean, self-righteous people there 
are who do not really pray to God, but, like this 
Pharisee, pray with themselves and congratulate 
themselves in the house of God. They shut the 
door of heaven in their own faces even in the house 
of prayer. But the publican realized that he was a 
sinner. He had nothing to commend him in the 
sight of God. It was not justice he needed, but 
mercy. So he cries, “ God, be thou merciful unto 
me, a sinner!”? He was in dead earnest. In the 
language of the street of today, he was up against 
it. There was only one chance for him, and that 
was in the pure mercy of God. Such a prayer of- 
fered in that genuine spirit of repentance and con- 
fession never goes unanswered. 

David once prayed a prayer like that. It was 
when David had sinned against God through yield- 
ing to the lowest desires of his nature. He stood 
in danger of utter ruin. Then Nathan, an honest 
messenger of God, came and pictured an outrage- 
ous sinner and looking David straight in the eye, 
said: ‘“ Thou art the man!” Then David saw his 
sin and his awful danger, and cried out to God in 
agony: ‘‘ Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, 
and done that which is evil in thy sight.” 


80 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Saul of Tarsus knew that same spirit of repent- 
ance when, on the way to Damascus, he was smit- 
ten down at noonday and heard the voice from 
above saying: ‘‘ Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me? ” and answered, ‘‘ Who art thou, Lord? ” and 
when he knew it was Jesus, humbly asked, “ Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do? ”’ 

And this publican Jesus tells us about has the 
Same spirit when he cries, ‘‘ God, be thou merciful 
unto me, a sinner.” 

It brought forgiveness to David. It brought 
forgiveness to Saul and transformed him into Paul 
the great missionary of early Christianity. It 
brought forgiveness to the publican, eased the 
agony of his soul, and sent him down to his house 
justified. And you! whoever you are, man or 
woman, or whatever your sin, if you will in true 
repentance and honest confession offer that prayer 
for mercy in Jesus’ name, you, too, shall find for- 
giveness unto your soul’s salvation. 

This sermon is done, and yet I am loath to stop. 
I fear some buoyant boy or laughing girl, brought 
up to know about the Bible and Jesus, and yet who 
has never definitely given his or her heart to the 
Saviour, may read it and say, ‘‘ None of these 
stories fit my case.” 

To you, O youth, with your face toward the 
morning, I preach the blessed Christ who is ready 
to take your hand and lead you on into manhood 
and womanhood, making all joys brighter and all 


SALVATION COMES THROUGH PRAYER 81 


life an ever more glorious adventure. Louise Dris- 
coll sings a song of The Laughing Prayer: 


“The sorry prayers go up to God 
Day after weary day, 
They whimper through the eternal blue 
And down the milky way. 


“ Deaf to the music of the stars, 
The children of desire. 
Beggars before the Throne of God, 
They wait for God to tire. 


“The proletariat of Heaven 
Swarmed in the golden street 
One day when Michael's host came by 
Up to the Judgment Seat. 


“ Above the heavenly mansions 
Bright, streaming banners flowed, 
While Cherubim and Seraphim 
Were crowding in the road. 


“And then a little, laughing prayer 
Came running from the sky, 
Along the golden gutters where 
The sorry prayers went by. 


“Tt had no fear of anything, 
But in that holy place 
It found the very Throne of God 
And smiled up in His face. 


“Then Michael waited in the road, 
For Michael understood, 
While God looked on the laughing prayer 
And found it sweet and good. 


“So God was comforted. He said: 
‘There still is hope for men. 
One man prays happily!’ And so 
He turned to care again.” 


Offer that happy prayer to God in this very hour. 


Vil 
GOD’S TITLE TO ME: 


CuRIST’s StoRY OF Gop’s OWNERSHIP OF MAN 


“But who is there of you, having a servant plowing 
or keeping sheep, that will say unto him, when he is 
come from the field, Come straightway and sit down to 
meat; and will not rather say unto him, Make ready 
wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, 
till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt 
eat and drink? Doth he thank the servant because he 
did the things that were commanded? Even so ye also, 
when ye have done all the things that are commanded 
you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done 
that which it was our duty to do.”’—LuKE 17: 7-10. 

HERE is much talk in these days about 

the subconscious mind, but what we all 

need more than anything else is the di- 

vine-conscious mind. To live conscious of the 

presence of God in the world and in us is to insure 

our living on a high, noble plane where we will fill 

our mental and spiritual lungs with an atmosphere 
surcharged with life and power. 

I was led to prepare this sermon by the decision 

of the Attorney-General of the United States that 


the property which formerly belonged to a little 


Hungarian Church in Austria-Hungary was being 


improperly held by the Custodian of Alien Prop- 
erty, an office which came into being during the 
great World War. 


The Attorney-General decided that this property 
82 


4 
. 


| 


GOD’S TITLE TO ME 83 


should never have been seized on account of war, 
because the title to it was “‘ vested in God.” That 
phrase, “‘ vested in God,” fastened in my mind and 
challenged my thought and would not down. I 
began to think of the things that belong to God 
and at last the questioning became personal, and I 
began to search for certain suggestions or traces of 
God’s title to me. 

Of course I immediately recalled the abstract 
of title set forth in the Bible. I find there re- 
corded that God has a deed to me because He is 
the Creator of my body and the Father of my 
spirit. I also accept the title that comes through 
the redemption by the atoning love of God in Jesus 
Christ. 

But that is not the line of evidence of title I 
wish to pursue at this time. It is always a great 
comfort to me if I can find in my own nature, in 
my own mind and heart, that which backs up the 
statements of God’s revealed word in the Bible. 

And it is of infinite joy to me, and a comfort 
beyond all words to describe, to find that the title 
to my own self is vested in God from certain wit- 
nessing traits and characteristics of my own soul. 

I 

One of these is a certain haunting homesickness 
of my soul that cannot be appeased or satisfied by 
worldly successes. And I find that my greatest 
growth both in strength of personality and purity 
of spirit comes from that discontent and dissatis- 


84 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


faction. ‘The storms and struggles of life from 
which I would escape, if I could, are necessary to 
lift me into my better self and develop within me 
the higher type of character of which I am capable. 
I would love to take life easy, but to do that is to 
stagnate; and only by rising into a working fel- 
lowship with Him who is the one ceaseless Worker 
in the universe, do I rise to the best that is within 
me. I have to thank God for the storms that stir 
my pool of life and keep it wholesome with the 
curative powers from heaven. Harold Trowbridge 
Pulsifer has a poem of rare insight which he calls 
The Waters of Bethesda. He sings: 


“My spirit was a troubled pool 
That stirred with every passing wind, 

And I was thirsty for the cool, 
Green depths of a long tranquil mind. 


“ Now let me rest, I cried, and sleep, 
While hours that vanish one by one 
Marshall the stars across the deep, 
And the still beauty of the sun. 


“ Let there be no more rain to fill 
My rocky chalice, harsh and brown; 
Let me know quietness until 
The warm earth-mother drinks me down. 


“There came a silence everywhere, 
And no clouds sailed and no wind stirred. 
Sun and stars shone stark and bare— 
I had the answer to my word. 


“ All night the stars stabbed through the dark, 
All day the sun shot from the sky, 
Swift, molten arrows to its mark— 
The lidless circie of my eye. 


“In the white torment where it lay 
My troubled spirit learned, poor fool, 
The glory of that stormy day 
When passing angels stirred the pool.” 


4 


Pie DS 4 


GOD’S TITLE TO ME 85 


Il 

A second trace of God’s title to me in my own 
nature is in the fact that I never grow, never really 
progress and mature, unless I dare to express my 
very self without fear of consequences, and that I 
never give genuine expression of my real self with- 
out becoming a larger and better man. Real 
growth in manhood or womanhood can come only 
from self-utterance, self-expression. 

I was reading awhile ago an editorial comment 
in an Eastern paper, in which the editor with very 
keen insight enlarged on the statement of a judge 
who, the day before, had said in a decision concern- 
ing certain fervent love-letters that had been read 
in court that the defendant had, at least, “* slopped 
over.” The editorial philosopher brought out the 
fact that, after all, self-expression, even if it some- 
times “‘ slopped over,” was an indication of growth 
and possible greatness far surpassing what was 
possible for one so hidebound by conventional life 
that he becomes a slave to what Carlyle bitterly 
calls “‘ the mechanical spirit of the age.” And he 
suggested that there never was a poet, small or 
great, who did not, at the start, slop over most 
vilely. There is no surer trace of our divine parent- 
age than the fact that for a man to really live is to 
express himself; and the man who can express him- 
self most, lives most. 

No one perfectly expresses himself but God, and 
He does it with marvelous prodigality and aban- 


86 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


don. When He expresses Himself in rain, He does 
not count the drops, but pours forth the wealth of 
the clouds on the thirsty earth. In the glory of 
the springtime He gladdens our eyes with a hun- 
dred apple blossoms for every apple which will 
finally ripen on the tree. When He expresses Him- 
self in power, He pours rivers over giant precipices 
at Shoshone and Niagara. When He expresses 
Himself in the sky, He flings thousands of suns 
and planets and worlds and stars into space, yet 
watches over them as a mother does over her fire- 
side brood. When God expresses Himself in sum- 
mer and autumn, He riots in colors and paints pic- 
tures that charm us beyond words. He makes 
every wayside forest and ripening field a thing of 
beauty; but when He has for His canvas a range 
of hills like the Berkshirés;_ pr mountains like the 
Cascades or the Rockies, His crimsons and yel- 
lows and bronzes tell to every eye that God, the 
Great Artist, has passed this way. 

Now I am so like God that I must express my- 
self, if I am to grow and show the real material 
that is within me. I must take the risk of over- 
expression, of ‘‘ slopping over,” if I am ever to be 
the man I ought to be, that God meant me to be. 
Niggardliness of life, timid refusal to give out en- 
ergy and emotion, to put forth my best powers, 
that is as mean and contemptible as the character- 
istic which has its origin in cowardice. Prodigality 
of life is a glorious thing, and life-energy carries 


GOD’S TITLE TO ME 87 


with it in itself the elements for the correction of 
its own mistakes. 

Now, at the bottom, the fear of-‘‘ slopping over ” 
is the dread of making one’s self ridiculous. But 
no one ever achieved anything of the highest value 
without running the risk of ridicule. Think of the 
story of inventors like Galileo, of explorers like 
Columbus, of pioneers, agitators, saints, martyrs, 
prophets and heroes without number, who have 
been laughed at, scorned, persecuted, imprisoned 
and slain by their own time, to be canonized and 
glorified by the children of the generation that cast 
them out. God has made me so like Himself that 
I can only really live by giving full and honest ex- 
pression to the simmering, seething forces that 
have their fountain in God and in my own soul. 

TP 

I find another trace of God’s title in me in the 
wonderful fact that when I express myself in ser- 
vice of blessing to others, I add most to my own 
joy and gladness. That not by hoarding my joy, 
but by expressing it, by pouring it forth, by giving 
it away, I most surely keep it in my own per- 
sonality. 

I find that when I prodigally pour out all the joy 
and courage and gladness I can summon from 
within myself, not only on my friends but on 
strangers, not only on those who have a claim on 
me but those who have not, there comes back flood- 
ing my own mind and heart a multiplied wealth of 


88 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


joy and sunshine. [I find that when I give with 
open hand whatever God has given me to give, in 
laughter and love, there comes back into my own 
heart all the laughter and gladness from all the 
hearts I have blessed. 

It was said of a great English statesman after he 
was dead, referring to the warmth of his soul, “‘ He 
lit so many fires in cold rooms.” That is to be 
like God, whose smile kindles the universe. And 
when I find that my greatest joy comes not from 
selfishness, but from unselfish service of others’ 
need, I know that the title to my nature—my very 
self—is vested in God. 


IV ; 

Another trace of God’s title to me I find in the 
fact that my real joy is not in material but in spir- 
itual things. Not in thinking of lands or goods or 
money do I really exultingly live, but my real joy 
is in the kingdom of my own soul; the kingdom of 
God is withinme. The story of mankind has proved 
beyond all question that man can be perfectly 
happy and victorious without the material suc- 
cesses for which men strive. St. Francis of Assisi, 
as Renan has said, was, next to Jesus, the sweetest 
soul that ever walked this earth, and he condemned 
himself to hunger and rags. But even then in the 
forest and the lonely glen the birds used to wel- 
come him to be their friend and companion. And . 
there are tens of thousands of men and women 


GOD’S TITLE TO ME . 89 


today who would be infinitely happier living as he 
did on bread and water and the cresses that grow 
by the mountain brook than living in a mansion 
at the cost of giving up the glory and joys of the 
higher mental and spiritual life. . 

James Martineau brings out with beautiful clear- 
ness, in what he aptly calls ‘the friendships of 
history,” how blessed the humblest man or woman 
may be who lives in the mind and heart rather than 
in the noisy, dusty street of materialism. 


“He that cannot leave his workshop or his village,” says 
Martineau, “let him have his passport to other centuries, 
and find communion in a distant age; it will enable him to 
look ‘up into those silent faces that cannot deceive, and take 
the hand of solemn guidance that will never mislead or be- 
tray. The ground-plot of a man’s own destiny may be 
closely shut in, and the cottage of his rest small; but if the 
story of this old world be not quite strange to him—if he can 
find his way through its vanished cities to hear the plead- 
ings of justice or watch the worship of the gods; if he can 
visit the battle-fields where the infant life of nations has been 
baptized in blood; if he can steal into the prisons where the 
lonely martyrs have waited for their death; if he can walk 
in the garden or beneath the porch where the lovers of wis- 
dom discourse, or be a guest at the banquet where the wine 
of high converse passes around; if the experiences of his own 
country and the struggles that consecrate the very soil be- 
neath his feet are no secret to him; if he can listen to Lati- 
mer at Paul’s Cross, and tend the wounded Hamden in the 
woods of Chalgrove, and gaze, as upon familiar faces, at the 
portraits of More and Bacon, of Vane and Cromwell, of 
Owen, Fox and Baxter,—he consciously belongs to a grander 
life than could be given by territorial possession ; he vene- 
rates an ancestry auguster than a race of kings; and is richer 
in the sources of character than any prince or monarch.” 


Oh, my friends, this inner realm of glorious life 
is possible to us all. Let us live up to God’s title 
in us and our title in Him. It is not enough to 


90 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


have a good creed. We must set our faith out in 
the garden of our souls and let it grow and blos- 
som in our thinking, in our affections, and in our 
deeds. Many people today who are not keeping 
pace with their own time remind one of a charac- 
ter in the Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, 
whose ideas acquired long ago had “ never fructi- 
fied in him, but were like hard stones which rattled 
in his pocket.” 

We must set ourselves against anything in our 
own time or environment that would frustrate 
God’s title in us. 

Margot Asquith tells how she once met a tramp 
and asked him how he decided which way he 
would tramp, and his answer was, “ I always turn 
my back to the wind.” That was what made him 
a tramp. He never had had the courage to breast 
the wind and go courageously on in its teeth, or 
he would have ceased to be a tramp and have be- 
come a man. Alas, many people with plenty of 
money in their pocket are only tramps who always 
turn their backs to the wind and thus lose the real 
joy and achievement of life. 

It is a great thing to face life conscious of God, 
and at one with Him in our aim and purpose. A 
man who does not love God and who does not seek 
to work in harmony with God is always having a 
bear fight going on in his own soul which makes . 
peace impossible. 

H. G. Wells tells of his meeting with Theodore 


GOD’S TITLE TO ME 91 


Roosevelt and describes “the friendly peering 
snarl of his face like a man with the sun in his 
eyes.” 

It is good to live facing the sun. With such a 
man or woman the head may grow gray, but there 
will always be summer in the heart, and in that 
garden of faith there will be fragrant blossoms and 
inspiring songs of radiant birds of hope and 
promise. 

So in faith and sincerity let us live into our life’s 
canvas the picture God would have us paint. As 
Edgar A. Guest so graphically portrays: 


“Sunshine and shadow and laughter and tears, 
These are forever the paints of the years, 
Splashed on the canvas of life day by day, 

We are the artists, the colors are they. 

We are the painters, the pigments we use 

Never we're wholly permitted to choose. 

Grief with its gray tint and joy with its red 
Come from life’s tubes to be blended and spread. 


“ Here at the easel, the brushes at hand, 
Each for a time is permitted to stand. 
White was the canvas when first we began, 
Ready to picture the life of a man. 
Now we are splashing the pigments about, 
Knowing the reds and the blues must give out, 
Soon we must turn to the dull hues and gray, 
Painting the sorrows that darken the way. 


“ Now with the sunshine and now with the shade 
Slowly but surely the picture is made. 
Even the gray tints with beauty may glow 
Recalling the joy of the lost long ago. 
Let me not daub it with doubt and despair, 
Deeds that are hasty, unkind and unfatr, 
But when the last bit of pigment 1s dried 
Let me look back at my canvas with pride. 


“Let me when trouble is mine to portray, 
Dip, with good courage, my brush in the gray; 


92 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


After the tears and the grief let there be 

Something of faith for my children to see. 

Lord, let me paint not in anger or hate, 

Grant me the patience to work and to wait, 

Make me an artist, though humble my style, 

And let my life’s canvas show something worth while.” 

But if it bears something worth while, it will be 
because we give ourselves in full surrender to do 
our duty as the servants of Jesus Christ. You say, 
“What canI do?” I answer, “ Do the duty that 
is next your hand! ” God will take care of the 
result. It is in reach of the humblest layman to 
work miracles of salvation if he will seize hold on 
the power of God through prayer. A man un- 
known to fame was Edward Graves, a commercial 
traveler, but he was a faithful servant of God and 
kept a prayer list that he talked to God about 
every day. One day he asked S. M. Sayford, a 
merchant to whom he sold goods, to let him have 
his name on his prayer list. Sayford wrote his 
autograph without any intention of becoming a 
Christian, but a little after he was converted. He 
in turn won C. K. Ober to Christ, and C. K. Ober 
won John R. Mott, and that Christian statesman, 
John R. Mott, has been the cause of thousands of 
men giving their hearts to Jesus. 
You belong to God. I call upon you in Christ’s 

name to make good in service for God! At it, in 
a whole-hearted service! 


VIll 


FORGIVENESS—THE MOST LOVABLE 
OF ALL THE GRACES: 


CHRIST’s STORY OF A FORGIVING KING AND 
AN UNFORGIVING SERVANT 


“Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a 
certain king, who would make a reckoning with his ser- 
vants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was 
brought unto him, that owed him ten thousand talents. 
But forasmuch as he had not wherewith to pay, his lord 
commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, 
and all that he had, and payment to be made. The ser- 
vant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, 
Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 
And the lord of that servant, being moved with compas- 
sion, released him and forgave him the debt. But that 
servant went out and found one of his fellow servants, 
who owed him a hundred shillings: and he laid hold on 
him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay what thou 
owest. So his fellow-servant fell down and besought 
him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee. 
And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, 
till he should pay that which was due. So when his 
fellow-servants saw what was done, they were exceeding 
sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was 
done. Then his lord called him unto him, and saith 
unto him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that 
debt, because thou besoughtest me: shouldst not thou 
also have had mercy on thy fellow-servant, even as I had 
mercy on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered 
him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was 
due. So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you, if 
ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.” 
—Marruew 18: 23-35. 


ETER, the fisherman whom Jesus chose as 
one of His disciples, was a most inquiring 
and curious-minded man. He was ald * 


starting something. This is constantly illustrated § 
93 


ROE 


94 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


in the Gospel story. Does Jesus come walking on 
the storm-tossed sea at night to rescue His af- 
frighted disciples? You may be sure it is Peter 
who wonders if he could not walk on the water, 
too, and who calls out to the Master, ‘‘ Bid me to 
come to you on the water.” 

Is Jesus talking to them about the conditions of 
discipleship, and how necessary it is for a man to 
make his religion the greatest thing in his life, and 
remarks, “‘ It is easier for a camel to go through a 
needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of God”? You may be sure it was Peter 
who at once begins to wonder what is going to hap- 
pen to people who have given up all their fishing 
boats and nets in order to follow Christ, and who 
blurts out: ‘“‘Lo, we have left all and followed 
thee; what, then, shall we have? ” 

You may be certain that something interesting 
is going to turn up if Peter is in the crowd. 

Take this occasion: Jesus was talking to the dis- 
ciples about forgiveness, and trying to make clear | 
to their minds God’s willingness to forgive the sin- 
ner. In the course of the conversation He tells 
that unforgetable story of the lost sheep—how a 
man had a hundred sheep under his care, and when 
he came home one night, and turned them into the - 
fold, there were only ninety-and-nine. What will 
the shepherd do about it? Will he go in con- 
tentedly and eat his supper and go to sleep in com- 
fort? No, indeed! He will go back over the trail 


FORGIVENESS—LOVABLE OF GRACES 95 


of the day, even though it is dark, and call and 
seek after the lost sheep until he finds it, and when 
he finds it, he will laugh for joy and lift the sheep 
to his shoulder and come home through the black 
night with a happy heart because he has found the 
sheep that was lost. So Jesus says it is with God 
over a lost man who is won back from sin. All 
heaven rejoices over one repenting sinner brought 
back to God. 

And then Jesus proceeds to make the story prac- 
tical to them. He tells them that if ever one of 
their brothers wrongs them they must go and re- 
monstrate with him. And if he is reasonable, they 
will have won their brother back in friendship and 
love. But if he is unreasonable, and will not 
listen, take one or two mutual friends along and 
talk it over together; and if he is utterly unrea- 
sonable still, bring it before the church and try to 
settle it there. He goes on to tenderly show them 
that these earthly settlements of our troubles with 
our fellows will affect the eternal life in heaven, and 
that in all such efforts to allay strife and bring 
about peace and love they may be sure God is in- 
terested, and closes by saying, “‘ For where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am 
I in the midst of them ”—one of the sweetest 
promises in all the Bible. 

Now Peter had been listening to all this with a 
great deal of interest, until he was ready to explode 
with questions. I suspect Peter had had a good 


96 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


deal to bear from some of the men who, like him- 
self, were following after Christ. Some one had 
pestered him about as long as he thought he could 
stand it. It may have been the greed of Judas, or 
the radical ways of that queer old Bolshevist, | 
Simon the Zealot, or the dour gloom of Thomas,— 
I am only guessing, of course; but some one had 
been stepping on Peter’s toes and not treating him 
right, until he wondered if he had not stood it long 
enough. And so this talk of Christ’s about for- 
bearance and forgiveness got on Peter’s nerves. 
He stood it as long as he could, and then he burst 
out with his question, ‘ Lord, how oft shall my 
brother sin against me, and I forgive him? . Until 
seven times?” I expect Peter’s special pest, whom 
he had in mind, had already seven delinquencies 
to his discredit, and Peter felt that next time he 
would have to strike back at him; so he set the 
limit at seven times. How amazed he must have 
been at the answer of Jesus: “‘ I say not unto thee, 
until seven times; but until seventy times seven.” 
Which was in substance: ‘‘ Oh, Peter, it is not a 
case where you can count times against your 
brother. Suppose God did that way with you, 
what hope would you have? ” 

Then Jesus tells this interesting and illustrative 
story about a king who decided it was time to bal- 
ance accounts with his servants who had been in- 
trusted with his affairs; and in the course of the 
investigation one came before him who owed him 


FORGIVENESS—LOVABLE OF GRACES 97 


the immense sum of ten thousand talents, and he 
was utterly unable to make settlement, and the 
king at first decided that the man and his wife and 
his children should all be sold into slavery to help 
make up the amount he was in debt. But when 
the man fell on his knees and begged for mercy, 
the king’s heart relented and he forgave him and 
entirely remitted the immense debt and mercifully 
gave him a new chance. 

But the man who received this merciful treat- 
ment was unworthy of it. Instead of these show- 
ers of kindness sinking deep into his heart and 
making the soil of his soul mellow with tenderness, 
they fell upon a rock; and when he went out from 
the king’s presence it was not with a heart fra- 
grant with gratitude and love for the mercy he had 
received, but with a heart smarting with wrath and 
indignation because he had had to humiliate 
himself. 

Just then he ran across a man who owed him the 
small sum of a hundred shillings, and he seized him 
rudely by the throat and said, ‘“ Pay what thou 
owest.”” And when the man, following his own 
example, fell down and besought him, saying, 
“Have patience with me and I will pay thee,” he 
would not listen to his cries for mercy, but threw 
his debtor into prison till he should pay the last 
farthing of his debt. 

Now, their fellow-servants, knowing the mercy 
the first. man had received from the king in for- 


98 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


giveness for his much greater debt, and seeing the 
hard-hearted treatment he was meting out to his 
fellow-servant, went and told the king the facts. 
And we do not wonder that the king sent for him 
and said, ‘“‘ Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all 
that debt, because thou besoughtest me: shouldst 
not thou also have had mercy on thy fellow-servant, 
even as I had mercy on thee?” And the king was 
filled with indignation and delivered him up to 
prison until his debt should be paid. And our text 
is the comment of Jesus on this story: “So shall 
also my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive 
not every one his brother from your hearts.” 


I 

On this question of forgiveness Jesus declares 
there is one law for God and man. If you want to 
know how you should forgive your fellow-man, you 
have only to find out how God forgives. Let us 
study for a little how God forgives. Hear God 
saying in Isaiah, the forty-third chapter, ‘“ I, even 
I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.” 
And again, “‘ I will not remember thy sins.” You 
have seen a teacher at the blackboard fill it with 
figures and then take the sponge or the eraser and 
blot it all out until not one figure remained. So 
God says, ‘I will blot out your transgressions.” 


And lest some poor sinner might shiver with fear — 


that in His infinite wisdom the mind of God still 


FORGIVENESS—LOVABLE OF GRACES 99 


retained the impression made by his sins, God 
says: ‘I will not remember thy sins.” That is 
the way God forgives. 

Hezekiah is quoted in the thirty-eighth chapter 
of Isaiah as saying in his written experience of 
God’s mercy, ‘“ Thou hast cast all my sins behind 
thy back.” That is the way God forgives. 

Listen to David in the one hundred and third 
Psalm, as he tells his experience of God’s for- 
giveness: 


“As far as the east is from the west, 
So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” 


And Paul in his letter to the Hebrews, in the 
tenth chapter, quotes God as saying: “ And their 
sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” 

That is the way God forgives. But I hear some 
one say, “‘ I am ready to believe that God forgives 
like that, but it is too much to expect of human 
nature to imagine that a man can forgive that way. 
It is all an idle dream.”” <A dream, yes, but not an 
idle dream. It is God’s dream and good enough 
to come true. 

“ Dreams are they—but they are God’s dreams! 
Shall we decry them and scorn them? 
That men shall love one another, 
That white shall call black man brother, 
That greed shall pass from the market-place, 
That lust shall yield to love for the race, 
That man shall meet with God face to face— 
Dreams are they all, 


But shall we despise them— 
God’s dreams! 


100 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“ Dreams are they—to become man’s dreams! 

Can we say nay as they claim us? 
That men shall cease from their hating, 
That war shall soon be abating, 
That the glory of kings and lords shall pale, 
That the pride of dominion and power shall fail, 
That the love of humanity shall prevail— 
Dreams are they all, 

But shall we despise them— 

God’s dreams!” 


II 

God’s mercy to us in forgiving our sins must 
create in us a spring of mercy that shall burst forth 
in an overflowing stream of forgiving love to 
others. 

It is wonderful how the man who really repents 
of his own sin toward God and finds forgiveness 
through Jesus Christ immediately finds his hard 
heart melted into sympathy and tenderness. 

Do you remember how Paul and Silas, beaten 
and bloody from wounds until they were half dead, 
were handed over to the hard-hearted Roman jailer 
at Philippi, and how that brutal man put them, 
helpless and suffering as they were, into the inner 
cell and thrust their feet into the stocks and left 
them for the night? Do you recall how they 
prayed to God and sang songs at midnight, and 
how when the earthquake came and shook the locks 
to pieces on the prison doors and the prisoners — 
came running into the lobby of the jail, Paul and © 
Silas with them, and the jailer, thinking they would © 
all escape and he would lose his head, drew his — 
sword to commit suicide, Paul took command and — 





FORGIVENESS—LOVABLE OF GRACES 101 


cried to the jailer, ‘‘ Do thyself no harm, we are 
all here’? Do you remember how the jailer fell 
on his knees at Paul’s feet and cried: “ Sirs, what 
must I do to be saved? ” and Paul and Silas with 
one voice shouted: ‘‘ Believe on the Lord Jesus, 
and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.” 
And the jailer repented and God forgave him then 
and there. 

And see what happened! He had been so hard- 
hearted a few hours before that he had thrust their 
poor, bleeding feet into the stocks in the inner cell 
and left them to starve in agony. But now, since 
God’s forgiveness has come to him, he rushes away 
after water and oil and bandages and tenderly 
washes and cleanses their wounds and ministers to 
their comfort. And after midnight as it is, he 
will not rest until he has set food before them and 
made all the amends possible for his cruelty. 

That is the effect God’s forgiveness ought to 
have on every one of us who has received forgive- 
ness of his own sins. Witter Bynner sings ten- 
derly of Jesus: x 


“A poet lived in Galilee, 
Whose mother dearly knew him, 
And his beauty like a cooling tree 
Drew many people to him. 


“ He had sweet-hearted things to say, 
And he was angry only 
When people were unkind. That day 
He’d stand there straight and lonely. 


“ And tell them what they ought to do: 
‘Love other folks, he pleaded, 
‘As you love me and I love you; 


102 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


And we must follow in the footsteps of our Master. 

Many people will be kept out of heaven because 
they will not learn this divine lesson of forgiveness. 
A ministerial friend of mine, now with God, once 
told me of a young woman who was greatly moved 
toward the Christian life in a meeting he was con- 
ducting and sought in sorrow for days for the for- 
giveness of her sins, but was still in great agony 
of conscience. He conversed with her again and 
again, trying to help her to saving faith. Finally 
he said to her: “ Are you holding any hard, unfor- 
giving thoughts and feelings against any one? ” 
She jumped as if he had struck her. Her face 
flamed. He knew that at last he had found the key 
to her trouble. After a moment’s hesitation she 
said: “ Yes, there is one person who has wronged 
me so badly, so cruelly, that I never can forgive 
it.” “Well, then,” said the minister, sadly but 
tenderly, ‘God cannot forgive you. Jesus taught 
us in the Lord’s Prayer that we can only ask God 
to forgive us as we forgive those who sin against 
us. We must forgive those who have wronged us 
before we can ask God to forgive the wrong we 
have done Him.” She went away very sad and de- 
pressed. 

That afternoon she won the victory in her own 
soul and wrote a letter of forgiveness to the one 
who had wronged her; and on the way to the even- 
ing service she went by the post-office and dropped 
the letter in the mail box. 


FORGIVENESS—LOVABLE OF GRACES 103 


When she met the minister a few minutes later 
at the church door her face was glowing like the 
sun as she exclaimed, “ It is all right! Iam so 
happy! Jesus is my blessed Saviour! I know my 
sins are all forgiven!” 

The minister inquired, “‘ Tell me, please, just 
when was the burden of your guilt and gloom 
lifted? ” And she answered with a happy laugh, 
“ Just when I let go of the letter of forgiveness 
and I knew it was out of my reach on the way to 
the one who had wronged me.” 

Are any of you in that same place of danger? 
Are you allowing the path to forgiveness and salva- 
tion to be blocked because of your stubbornness in 
holding resentment against another? Learn this 
great lesson now. Remember that Jesus has set us 
an example of forgiveness beyond all He asks 
of us. 

There is something very pathetic and very 
Christlike to my mind in the poem that George 
McClellan, the colored poet, writes to his own 
people: 

“Christ washed the feet of Judas! 
Yet all his lurking sin was bare to Him, 
His bargain with the priest, and more than this, 


In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim, . 
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss. 


“And so if we have ever felt the wrong 
Of trampled rights, of caste, it matters not 
What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long, 
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot: 
Christ washed the feet of Judas.” 


104 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


I was once conducting evangelistic services in a 
town in New England where, notwithstanding the 
fact that large audiences attended the preaching, 
there was no marked spiritual outpouring, and calls 
to sinners to repent and accept Christ went un- 
heeded. I seemed to be up against a stone wall. 
At last the pastor told me that the real difficulty 
in saving souls in that community was that two of 
the leading business men in the town, both mem- 
bers of his church, were greatly embittered against 
each other and, though they were both officers in 
his church, did not speak when they met, and the 
evil influence of this feud hung like a pall of death 
over the church. 

After much thought and earnest prayer, I 
preached the next Sunday morning on the great 
importance of a forgiving heart to all who would 
receive the forgiveness of God or who would be 
the channel of divine influence in the salvation of 
others. That afternoon there was a meeting for 
men only. Just as the meeting was about to open 
a thrill of excited feeling ran through the audience, 
as down the central aisle those two men came walk- 
ing together, arm in arm, and sat down at the front 
side by side. 

Only one of the men had been present in the 
morning, but the Holy Spirit had carried the mes- — 
sage to his heart and he had gone straight to his 
neighbor’s house, and when his neighbor opened 
the door in amazement at seeing him there, he said: 


FORGIVENESS—LOVABLE OF GRACES 105 


“ John, I have come to ask you to forgive me. The 
sermon this morning showed me that I was sinning 
against God by hating you, and I have asked God 
to forgive me. And now I ask you to forgive me, 
and let us turn over a new leaf and live together 
as Christian men ought to live.’ The neighbor 
burst into tears and threw his arm about his shoul- 
der and said, “ David, Iam so glad you came. I 
stayed away from church because I was ashamed 
to go, knowing that people were talking about our 
quarrel. I do forgive you, and I ask you to for- 
give me!” ‘They prayed together and then came 
to the church; and as they came down that central 
aisle that Sunday afternoon the whole audience 
was moved to the heart, a hundred handkerchiefs 
went to eyes of strong men unaccustomed to tears, 
and a blessed revival of religion broke out that 
very hour, and many were won to Christ. 

This represents the high-water mark in Chris- 
tian experience—to attain the forgiving heart. 
The supreme mission of the Gospel is to bring the 
forgiveness of God to sinning men. The old Good 
Friday scene on Calvary, with its three crosses, is 
re-enacted all around the world every day of life, 
Christ atoning for sin, one man accepting forgive- 
ness of sin, and another rejecting Jesus and dying 
in his sin. 

God help us to see clearly the old vision anew 
today! 


106 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


, 
x “ Crosses for three stand on Calvary’s brow, 
j A King and two robbers of old; 

One is a Saviour, one scoffs at that Face, 
One turns in faith and is saved by His grace, 
Sees the rich wonders of glory unfold:— 

Sinless, and sinful, and stn-pardoned now. 


“ Crosses for three face Jerusalem Town; 
To each hastens death’s doleful toll; 
One is a Conqu’ror at close of His strife, 
One spurns his chance of a heavenly life, 
One wins at last the peace of his soul, 
Gains through the Christ the reward of a crown. 


“ Crosses for three rise again into view, 
On Calvary’s mountain of love; , 
One died for sin—with his heart toward His God— 
One died in sin—with his face toward the clod— 
One died to sin—with his hope from above:— 
Crosses for three have their message for you.” 


IX 
THE SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES: 


CuHRIST’s STORY ILLUSTRATING THE BEAUTY 
AND VALUE OF HUMILITY 


“ And he spake a parable unto those that were bidden, 
when he marked how they chose out the chief seats; 
saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to 
a marriage feast, sit not down in the chief seat; lest 
haply a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him, 
and he that bade thee and him shall come and say to 
thee, Give this man place; and then thou shalt begin 
with shame to take the lowest place. 

“ But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the 
lowest place; that when he that hath bidden thee cometh, 
he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt 
thou have glory in the presence of all that sit at meat 
with thee. For every one that exalteth himself shall be 
humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 

“ And he said to him also that had bidden him, When 
thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, 
nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich neighbors; 
lest haply they also bid thee again, and a recompense 
be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, bid the 
poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt 
be blessed; because they have not wherewith to recom- 
pense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in the resur- 
rection of the just.”—LuKE 14: 7-14. 


HERE is a wistful little poem, written by 
George Sterling, entitled The Strange 

Bird, which seems to me to suggest some 

of the rare and beautiful charms of this often 


neglected grace of humility: 
107 


108 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“We are not done disputing yet 
Which of us heard its singing first— 
A sorrow to a music Set, 
Welcome as water to a thirst, 
Tender as sleep to old regret. 


“Tt was a shy and nameless bird, 
And shy and nameless was the song, 
By morning twilight often heard 
It kept where shadows still were long, 
Ready to vanish at a word. 


“It sang beside the quieter streams 
Of beauty found perpetual— 
No loveliness that only seems, 
But all that made love beautiful 
And life more beautiful than dreams. 


“Unseen by darkness as by noon, 
It slept, we thought, afar from fears; 
Though once we heard, below the moon, 
A strain like gladness told 1n tears, 
That rose, and sank, and died too soon. 


“We hoped to find that hidden place, 
But evening shadows foiled the sight; 
Save of ihe song, we had no trace 
Of that cool secrecy of light, 
Where silence had a purer grace.” 

Some one, whose name I do not now recall, has 
said that the story of a word is as full of romance 
as the story of some great campaign that has 
changed the history of nations and remade the 
world. That would be true of this word humility. 
Of all the words picturing the great spiritual graces, 
this has been the most neglected and the most fre- 
quently and often the most scornfully snubbed. 
It has become common in many quarters to regard 
the word “humility ” or “ humble” with oppro- 
brium. As though humility were a thing to be 
ashamed of! If we are to find the rich blessings 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES _ 109 


for our souls in the songs of this shy singer among 
the spiritual graces, we must let the sunshine of 
the Bible view of it warm it and illuminate it until 
its old glory radiates from it again. We must get 
into our hearts and minds something of the feeling 
of Josephine Preston Peabody when she sings: 
“Words, Words, 

Ye are like birds. 

Would I might fold you, 

In my hands hold you 

Till ye were warm and your feathers a-flutier; 
Tull, in your throats, 


Tremulous notes 
Foretold the songs we would utter. 


“Words, Words, 

Ye are all birds! 

Would ye might linger 

Here on my finger, 
Till I kissed each, and then sent you a-winging ; 

Wild, perfect flight, 

Through morn to night, 
Singing and singing and singing 


f 


There are songs in this sweet old word, “ hu- 
mility,” as full of music as a meadow lark in a field 
of red clover in June, if we can get a vision of its 
rich heart that is full of comfort and blessing. 
God help us to find them! 

Let us study some of the blessings which come 
from the cultivation of this grace of humility in our 
minds and hearts. 

I 

We will find that it is a rare source of happiness 
in saving us from an overweening estimate of our 
own importance. Nothing breeds unhappiness more 


110 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


certainly than egotism. Self-conceit is a sure 
trouble-breeder. When we have an exaggerated 
idea of our own importance, we naturally think 
that great deference is due to our person and to our 
opinions, and it becomes hard for us to realize that 
other people’s opinions have equal right of way 
with our own. We cannot understand how that 
can be, since we are so important. A very self- 
conceited man or woman is likely to spend much 
time in self-pity whenever any plan goes awry. 

Nothing is greater folly than self-pity. No time 
is more hopelessly wasted than the time we spend 
in being sorry for ourselves. It paralyzes effort 
to better our condition. You can sit down and 
weep tears of self-pity all day and not get one step 
away from your trouble, while if you had gone to 
work saying in the words of the little rhyme: 


“Tf we sigh about a trouble 
It will double day by day. 
If we laugh about a trouble 
It’s a bubble blown away,” 


you would have soon gotten into a new territory 
of hope and sunshine. 

Humility saves us from touchiness and sullen- 
ness. If we think we are very important people, 
we resent any one sticking his elbow into our ribs, 
and are ready either to fight or are heavy and 
sullen over the insult to our dignity. If we are 
girded with humility, and are out on the journey 
of life to be a good companion and helper, a good 
citizen of the world, we will not make mountains 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES Ill 


out of mole hills. We have something better to do 
than to allow our tempers to be disturbed by the 
ill-tempered whines of others. 

Three small boys were walking along the street, 
when an older ruffian of a boy came by and, with 
a sudden sweep of his hand, knocked all their hats 
off. One boy took to his heels, fearing a still 
worse fate; one pulled off his coat and started to 
fight; but the third boy simply picked up his hat, 
put it on his head, and walked off whistling. That 
third boy will go far if he keeps that spirit. 

If we wish to make sure what the Christian atti- 
tude toward the troubles and difficulties of life is, 
we must go back and see how Christ Himself met 
them. If any man who ever lived had the right to 
pity himself, to feel sorry for himself, it was Jesus; 
and yet so far as we are able to discover He never 
spent a single hour of His entire life doing it. His 
life was a constant struggle against opposition. He 
was tempted and tried by Satan in every way, as 
we are. Jesus did not hold Himself as too im- 
portant as the Son of God to endure the hardships 
that come to the poorest and weakest men and 
women. He didnot shirk. In perfect humility He 
went into the desert with the wild beasts, and into 
the wilderness to face the devil, and came out joy- 
ously triumphant. Evelyn Knowles says of that 
wilderness experience of Jesus: 


“ Here He was tempted, like as we are tried; | 
Yet, without sin. In those long days and mighis, 
Kind Patience ministered; Courage forsook Him not. 


112 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


At length Self-conquest made the triumph sure; 
And He stood forth true conqueror of the world, 
The flesh, and every evil of its train, 

Because of His sole victory over self. 


“ Dear Father, when this wilderness we face, 
And Love invites us, may we never pause, 
Nor falter. Thy good angels wait us there, 
To guide, encourage, bear us in their hands. 


“When we have learned the lessons, fought and won, 
Like our great Master, may we forth again 
With shining faces lighted from above. 
All that was true before will true remain: 
Nothing be lost, when self is found in Thee. 
The dross consumed is proof that Love doth bless, 
When in obedience we face the wilderness.” 


II 

True humility brings great joy into our hearts 
and lives because under its wise influence we are 
constantly led to think on the beautiful and good 
in other people and in things outside of ourselves. 
The self-absorbed man or woman misses the very 
richest sources of human joy. When we are hum- 
ble enough to forget ourselves, and listen and look 
into the beauty of God’s bright universe, we cannot 
fail to find that God has set it all to music. 

“ Music is in all growing things 
And underneath the silky wings 
Of smallest insects there is stirred 


A pulse of air that must be heard; | 
Earth’s silence lives, and throbs and sings.” 


And Emerson says, with rare insight into nature’ 
and life: 


“Even in the mud and scum of things 
There always—always something sings.’ 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES 113 


The man or the woman who is humble enough to 
live with this open ear and eye lives more joyously 
than any selfish person can know or understand. 

Some one said of Sir Walter Scott that he en- 
joyed more in twenty-four hours than most men do 
in a week. It is an open road to all who will travel 
thereon. 

See how the great souls of the Bible found in 
this humility and spirit of service indescribable 
joy—see Paul in Nero’s dungeon expecting daily 
the coming of the headsman as he came to John 
the Baptist in Herod’s prison; Paul, the great mis- 
sionary to the Gentiles, the splendid statesman and 
organizer of early Christianity; in what mood is he 
down there in that damp dungeon where he longs 
for his cloak? Is he sorry for himself? Is he 
pitying himself? Does he need to be comforted 
and consoled? No, indeed! Hear this buoyant, 
radiant-souled man as he exclaims: | 

“For if I should desire to glory, I shall not be foolish; 
for I shall speak the truth; but I forbear, lest any man 
should account of me above that which he seeth me to be, 
or heareth from me. And by reason of the exceeding great- 
ness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted over- 
much, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messen- 
ger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted over- 
much. Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, 
that it might depart from me. And he hath said unto me, 
My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made per- 
fect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory 
in my weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon 
me. Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, 


in necessities, in persecutions, for when I am weak, then 
am I strong.” 


114 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES | 


Hear him again on another day when he cried out: 
“ Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of life.” 


Paul’s humility means buoyant wings of radiant 
light. 

And Jesus, too, lived in that same buoyant, glad 
spirit. Paul learned it of Jesus. When Christ 
came back from His temptation in the wilderness, 
a great joy possessed His soul. It is often said of 
Him that He “ rejoiced in spirit.” And when He 
came to bid farewell to His disciples, He had no 
money nor stocks nor lands to give them, so He 
gave them His joy: ‘“ These things have I spoken 
unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that 
your joy may be made full.” And again in that 
last great prayer for His disciples He prays the 
Father that “they may have my joy made full in 
themselves.” Oh, if we are not living joyously, 
exultantly in God’s world let us examine ourselves. 
Let us be sure that self-absorption is not blinding 
our eyes to the riches of God’s grace and mercy 
all about us. Robert Browning in one of his 
poems describes an egotistical, self-absorbed man 
who 

“ Shut his fool eyes fast on the visible good 


And wealth for certain; opened them owl-wide 
On fortune’s sole piece of forgetfulness.” 


Humility alone can cure that folly and bring at 
once gratitude and joy to our hearts. 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES 115 


{il 


Humility is a grace that adds largely and gen- 
erously to what that rare and joyous man, Robert 
Louis Stevenson, aptly calls the ‘‘ Liveableness of 
Life.” 

Humility puts us in congenial, workable rela- 
tions with other people. No one would care to 
play with a young porcupine, but it is easy to play 
with a kitten or a puppy. Humility compared with 
egotism and arrogance is like a kitten compared 
to a hedgehog as an everyday work-fellow or play- 
fellow in the affairs of life. How true this is in 
the life of the home! A home where husband and 
wife, father and mother and children all stand on 
their rights, each with his or her quills up to see that 
no one intrudes or trespasses on their preserves of 
dignity, is more like hell on earth than like a real 
home. But how quickly humility sweetens that 
household! When the husband, forgetting him- 
self, gives all his wisdom and strength to be a 
source of blessing to his wife, and the wife, for- 
getting herself, pours the whole stream of her 
womanhood into inspiration and comfort for her 
husband, when each finds his or her joy in the joy 
of the other, then and then only are marriages 
made in heaven. 

The father who in the humility of Jesus seeks 
to interpret life to his children, not as an arbitrary 
force but as a loving helper to their wisdom and 
their joy; and the mother who, seeking not to ar- 


116 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


rogantly command, but lovingly lead the minds 
and hearts of her children into strength and good- 
ness, are the parents who come to stand in the 
place of God to their children and make goodness 
and heaven seem possible and delightful to them. 
Humility never shines with such heavenly radi- 
ance aS in the home. The member of a home 
group, whether father or mother or son or daugh- 
ter, who in perfect humility and helpfulness of 
spirit fulfills Browning’s description of one who was 
“A happy- tempered bringer of the best 
Out of the worst” 
is a true saint of God, a fellow of the Royal Order 
of Humility, than which there is no more blessed 
society among men. 
IV 


True humility makes all growth possible in 
knowledge and enables us to work out the best 
that is in us. The self-absorbed, self-conceited 
boy or girl, man or woman, never find their best 
selves or their noblest possibility of achievement. 
No one can learn without humility. The boy who 
thinks he already knows it all has bumped his head 
against a stone wall and cannot advance. Humil- 
ity is teachable, and all knowledge and wisdom is 
open to one who is humble. 

Thus humility fills a life with riches beyond the 
possibility of selfishness to obtain. Who of us has © 
not known men and women who, living day by day . 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES 117 


in this spirit of humble, loving service, have be- 
come so rich in the rare joy and gladness of spir- 
itual things that they radiated blessing on all who 
came under their influence? 

A friend of mine once told me that one Sunday 
as she was going out of Boston on a suburban train 
that was carrying hundreds of people home from 
churches in the city, two young men sat immedi- 
ately in front of her who had been to Trinity 
Church and had listened to a sermon by that great- 
souled preacher, Phillips Brooks. They were very 
much stirred by the discourse and by the per- 
sonality of that truly wonderful man. One of the 
young men was of the purely superficial type and 
said to the other, ‘““I envy a man like Brooks.” 
‘““ What do you envy about him? ” queried his com- 
panion. “Oh, he is such a big man, has such a 
fine position, gets a big salary, and lives in a fine 
house.” The other turned disgustedly to him and 
burst forth, ‘“‘ And is that all you envy him for? 
Plenty of men get bigger salaries and live in bigger 
houses. I'll tell you what I envy him for. It’s 
the great joy he gets out of living. He knows so 
much, he’s so good, he can help people so much. 
Why, do you know, life to him is just a great big 
three-decked meringue pie with whipped cream on 
top. That’s what I envy him for.” 

My friend, who knew Phillips Brooks, with his 
rich, glorious manhood, humbly serving multitudes 
of men and women, and living among them a buoy- 


118 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


ant, glowing life that made all goodness seem pos- 
sible, and who fairly exulted in the privilege of 
serving the most needy of his fellow men, thought 
that was the best description of the glorious per- 
sonality of Phillips Brooks she had ever heard. 


V 


Humility is the open door into friendships of 
rare power to bless. Dr. George Adam Smith, in 
his splendid biography of Henry Drummond, one 
of the most remarkable of modern saints, speaking 
of Drummond’s genius for friendship, gives as the 
supreme characteristic of it that “‘ he was rich in 
humility.” Gentleness and humility make friends 
without trying. One of the saddest things one ever 
reads about a man who has occupied a great and 
distinguished position is that he has no warm, inti- 
mate friends. It is a sad loss. Yet many men 
and women are too self-absorbed for real friend- 
ship. Solomon found out long ago that a man, if 
he would win friends, must himself be friendly. 
And Jesus shows His wondrous power to win 
friendship when He says to His disciples: 

“ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down 
his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the 
things which I command you. No longer do I call you ser- 
vants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth;.- 
but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard 
from my Father I have made known unto you.” 

Humility and the wealth of friendship belong to- 
gether. 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES 119 


VI 


Humility is the gateway to honor. Solomon 
(thinking no doubt of his own youth, for he was 
called to be king while yet a child), who won his 
God-given wisdom by his humble prayer, said in 
later life, ‘‘ Before honor goeth humility.” How 
clearly Jesus sets this forth in that wonderful inci- 
dent described by Luke, from which we get our 
theme: 


“And he spake a parable unto those that were bidden, 
when he marked how they chose out the chief seats; saying 
unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a marriage 
feast, sit not down in the chief seat; lest haply a more hon- 
orable man than thou be bidden of him, 

And he that bade thee and him shall come and say to thee, 
Give this man place; and then thou shalt begin with shame 
to take the lowest place. 

But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest 
place; that when he that hath bidden thee cometh, he may 
say to thee, Friend, go up higher: then shall thou have glory 
in the presence of all that sit at meat with thee. 

For every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and 
he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. And he said to 
him also that had bidden him, When thou makest a dinner 
or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy 
kinsmen, nor rich neighbors; lest haply they also bid thee 
again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou 
makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 

And thou shalt be blessed; because they have not where- 
with to rcompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in 
the resurrection of the just.” 


The Bible is illuminated with wonderful pic- 
tures of humility that God has honored. Take the 
case of Isaiah. He beheld the glory and majesty 
of God, and all his pride went from him, and he 
cried out to God, 


“Woe is me!” he cried, “for I am undone; because I 
am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in midst of a people 


120 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


of unclean lips.” And then in the hour of his humility, 
“There flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal 
in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the 
altar; and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this 
hath ‘touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and 
thy sin forgiven.” Then Isaiah was ready for his great 
career and the call soon came: “And I heard the voice of 
the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for 
us? Then I said, Here am 1; send me. And he said, Go.” 


Surely in Isaiah’s case it was true that humility 
goeth before honor. John Ruskin says: 


“T believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. 
I do not mean by humility doubt of his own power, or hesi- 
tation in speaking his opinions; but a right understanding 
of the relation between what he can do and say and the rest 
of the world’s doing and sayings. All great men not only 
know their business, but usually know that they know it, and 
are not only right in their, main opinions, but they usually 
know that they are right in them, only they do not think 
much of themselves on “that account. Arnolfo knows that he 
can build a good dome at Florence; Albert Durer writes 
calmly to one who has found fault with his work, ‘ It cannot 
be done better’; Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked 
out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else; 
only they do not expect their fellow men therefore to fall 
down and worship them. They have a curious undersense 
of powerlessness, feeling that the power is not in them, but 
through them, that they could not do or be anything else 
than God made them, and they see something divine and 
God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, 
foolishly, incredibly merciful.” 


God help us to learn this great lesson. 


VII 
How may I find this beautiful grace that means 
so much in helpfulness and joy and friendship and 
honor? ‘The secret is revealed in these words of 
Paul: ‘“ Not looking each of you to his own things, - 
but each of you also to the things of others.” 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES 121 


There is the open highway to TENG Ca). 
Meigs puts it: “ 
“ Lord help me live from day to day 
In such a self-forgetful way 


That even when I kneel to pray 
My prayer shall be for—others. 


“ Help me in all the work I do 
To ever be sincere and true 
And know that all I’'d do for you 
Must needs be done for—others. 


“ Let ‘Self’ be crucified and slain 
And buried deep; and all in vain 
May efforts be to rise again 
Unless to live for—others. 


“And when my work on earth is done 
And my new work in heaven's begun, 
May I forget the crown I’ve won 
While thinking still of—others. 


“ Others, Lord, yet others 
Let this my motto be, 
Help me to live for others 
That I may live like Thee.” 

There is a little story written by a man who in 
his innocent youth promised to be one of the great- 
est of English writers, Oscar Wilde. Later, sin 
wrecked and ruined his promising career; but out 
of the fruitage of his youth is a story about a 
young king which illustrates this great theme we 
are pursuing. It is the story of a king’s daughter 
who married an artist of large genius, and her 
only child, a son, was kidnapped by order of her 
father, the old king, and left in a goat-herder’s hut 
to be reared. But after many years, when the 
proud and wicked old king, who had broken his 


122 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


daughter’s heart, came to die, he sent for the 
young goat-herd and acknowledged him as heir to 
the throne. Now this young goat-herd prince had 
inherited from his artist father a great love for all 
beautiful things; and when they were planning for 
his coronation, he gave orders for a wonderful robe 
of tissued gold, and a ruby-studded crown, and a 
sceptre with rows and rings of pearls. Thinking 
about these beautiful things that were to clothe 
him with glory, he fell asleep and dreamed that he 
was in a great factory where the workers were 
driven like half-starved slaves, haggard in their 
miserable poverty. And when he drew near to 
see what they were weaving, he started as he saw 
in the fabric threads of gold, and he asked: ‘‘ What 
robe is this thou art weaving? ” and to his horror 
the starving slave answered, “It is the robe for 
the coronation of the young king.” And the prince 
awoke with a cry of shame. 

After awhile he fell asleep again and dreamed 
that he was lying on the deck of a huge galley 
rowed by a hundred slaves, and when it had 
reached its anchor a slave was taken, his feet 
weighted with lead, his ears filled with wax, and 
he was thrown overboard and sank into the water. 
After awhile he came up panting, with a pearl in 
his right hand. The chief seized the pearl and 
thrust the slave back into the water. This hap- 
pened several times, until at last the diver came up’ 
bringing in his hand the most wonderful pearl the 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES = 123 


young prince had ever seen, but it had cost the 
diver his life, for even as they seized the treasure 
from his nerveless hand, the blood gushed from 
his ears and nostrils and he lay dying on the deck. 
But the master of the galley smiled and said, as he 
rubbed the great pearl against his forehead: “‘ It 
shall be for the sceptre of the young king.” When 
the prince heard that, he woke with a great cry of 
horror. 

Again he fell asleep and dreamed that he stood 
in the midst of the dried-up bed of a great river, 
where a multitude toiled and dug and struggled 
and died of fever and plague, and he asked, 
“What are these poor creatures seeking?”’ And 
one answered, “‘ For rubies for a king’s crown.” 
He grew pale and said, “For what king?” And the 
man answered, “ Look in this mirror, and thou 
shalt see him.” The prince looked in the mirror, 
and seeing his own face, he gave a great cry and 
awoke. 

And a little later, his chamberlain and the high 
officers of state came in and bowed down before 
him, and the pages brought him the robe of tis- 
sued gold, and set the crown and the sceptre be- 
fore him. The young king looked at them, and 
they were indeed beautiful, more beautiful than 
aught he had ever seen, but he remembered his 
dreams, and he said to his lords, ‘‘ Take these 
things away, for I will not wear them.” And they 
laughed, thinking he jested. But he spoke 


124 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


sternly, “‘ Take these things and hide them from 
me. Though it be the day of my coronation, I will 
not wear them. For on the loom of Sorrow, and 
by the white hands of Pain, has this robe been 
woven. There is blood in the heart of the ruby, 
and death in the heart of the pearl.”’ Then he told 
them of his three dreams. His courtiers, and even 
the bishop who was to crown him, begged and 
plead, but he would not change. And he went 
and got out the leathern tunic and rough sheepskin 
cloak that he had worn as a goat-herd. These he 
put on, and in his hand he took his shepherd’s 
staff, and took a dry branch of sweet rose briar 
and bent it into a circlet and set it on his head. 
Then on foot he made his way to the cathedral. 
He went and stood before the image of Christ, and 
on his right hand and on his left were the marvel- 
ous vessels of gold. He knelt before the image, 
and the great candles burned brightly by the jew- 
elled shrine, and the smoke of the incense curled 
in thin blue wreaths through the dome. He bowed 
his head in prayer. As he prayed, the rebellious 
nobles and the angry soldiers came with much 
noise and clamor: ‘ Where is the king who is ap- 
parelled like a beggar—this boy who brings shame 
upon our state? Surely we will slay him, for he is 
unworthy to rule over us.” 

And the young king bowed his head and prayed, 
and when he had finished his prayer he arose, and > 
turning round looked at them sadly. And lo! 


SHY SINGER AMONG THE GRACES = 125 


through the painted windows came the sunlight 
streaming upon him, and the sunbeams wove round 
him a tissued robe that was fairer than the robe 
that had been fashioned for his pleasure. The 
dead staff blossomed and bore lilies that were 
whiter than pearls. The dry thorn blossomed, and 
bore roses that were redder than rubies. Whiter 
than fine pearls were the lilies, and their stems 
were of bright silver. Redder than male rubies 
were the roses, and their leaves were of beaten gold. 

He stood there in the raiment of a king, and the 
gates of the jewelled shrine flew open, and from 
the crystal of the many-rayed monstrance shone a 
marvelous and mystical light. He stood there in a 
king’s raiment, and the glory of God filled the 
place, and the saints in their carven niches seemed 
to move. In the fair raiment of a king he stood 
before them, and the organ pealed out its music, 
and the trumpeters blew upon their trumpets, and 
the singing boys sang. The people fell upon their 
knees in awe, and the nobles sheathed their 
swords and did homage, and the bishop’s face grew 
pale and his hands trembled. ‘A greater than I 
hath crowned thee,” he cried as he knelt before 
him. 

The young king came down from the high altar 
and passed home through the midst of the people. 
But no man dared look upon his face, for it was 
like the face of an angel. 


126 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


The little story has in it a vein of eternal truth. 
Whosoever learns the lesson of humility by hon- 
estly and unselfishly considering the things of 
others, is transformed through that grace into the 
beauty and glory of his divine Lord. 


x 
GOD’S CALL TO MANHOOD: 


CuHRIST’s STORY OF THE Two SONS 


“But what think ye? A man had two sons; and he 
came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in the 
vineyard. And he answered and said, I will not; but 
afterward he repented himself, and went. And he came 
to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and 
said, I go, sir: and went not. Which of the two did the 
will of his father? They said, The first. Jesus’ saith 
unto them, Verily I say unto you, the publicans and the 
harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.’— 
MatTHEW 21: 28-31. 


ORK is the law of life. Jesus said, 
““My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work.” All good and happy men are 
workers. For young men, middle-aged men, and 
old men work is the normal, God-planned life. 
There are two men in the United States whose 
lives and careers I have watched with great inter- 
est for nearly all my own life. They were both 
strong, well known and influential men when I 
was a little boy, and their influence and power on 
the world for good has grown through all the 
years, and their prestige as an influence and a 
testimony for righteousness grows greater with the 
years. Each of these men has lived over ninety 


years, and yet their force for good is not abated. 
127 


128 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


David’s milestone of threescore years and ten was 
only a milestone from which to take a new start 
into still more interesting adventures of usefulness. 

One of these men is Charles W. Eliot, President- 
Emeritus of Harvard University, who has im- 
pressed his high, unselfish ideals of manhood on 
many thousands of young men who have wrought 
valiantly to uplift and bless our American life. 
Though for many years Dr. Eliot has been Presi- 
dent-Emeritus, he continues to do helpful construc- 
tive work, and celebrated his ninetieth year with 
a new book carrying great essays and addresses 
all written since he was eighty years old. 

The other man who has passed the ninetieth 
milestone and is going strong is Chauncey M. 
Depew. When I was pastor in Brooklyn, New 
York, and later in New York City, I never lost 
an opportunity to hear and see this remarkable 
man. 

On his ninetieth birthday Chauncey Depew said: 
“Ninety years old—and glad of it! At twenty a 
man is raw and green and afraid of that mystery, 
existence. At ninety he’s settled in business, he’s 
surrounded by friends, he’s on cordial terms with 
life. I wouldn’t be twenty again for anything in 
the world. So far in my experience ninety is the 
ideal age. Perhaps one hundred is even better. I 
expect to find out.” : 

Depew is president of the Board of Directors of 
the New York Central Railway System, as he has 


GOD’S CALL TO MANHOOD 129 


been for a generation. He goes to his office every 
workday at ten and stays until four, the active, 
working, virile president of one of the greatest 
working commercial organizations on earth. 

Incidentally Depew has been Secretary of State 
for New York, United States Senator from New 
York, has turned down such offices as Secretary 
of State for the United States and American Am- 
bassador to England, but has never loafed in all 
his ninety years. 

When asked what was the sweetest thing 
and the finest thing life had brought him in his 
ninety years, he repeated: “The sweetest, the 
finest thing life has brought me? My friends.” 
He said it without a moment’s pause for thought. 
And when his interviewer asked what decade of 
his life so far had brought the most happiness, he 
answered, “‘ The last ten.”’ He chuckled and went 
on to sum up life: ‘“ Life, to be sure, brings un- 
pleasant experiences. Twice over, I have lost 
everything I had. But the thing that has never 
failed to comfort me when matters went wrong 
was what my mother used to say when I came 
home from school terribly disturbed by some boy- 
hood calamity. My mother was a rigidly relig- 
ious woman, and a learned one. ‘ Misfortune,’ she 
told me more than once, ‘ is sent by God for your 
discipline, and if you accept misfortune in this 
Spirit you will find that it has done you good.’ 

“From actual observation and experience I 


1380 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


have found this saying of my mother’s to be liter- 
ally true. If you look upon misfortune as a bit 
of discipline, you gain wisdom and strength from it. 

“At ten years a boy begins to think seriously. 
At twenty he wonders what he’d best go into, and 
that’s a very grave question. At thirty he’s afraid 
he didn’t choose the right career. At forty he 
generally has a financial smash because he has 
worked with his nose to the grindstone and didn’t . 
notice where his business was headed. At fifty 
he’s on his feet again and sure he chose the right 
career. At sixty he wonders if he will live to be 
seventy. At seventy he’s prosperous and alert, 
and he begins to be ambitious; he wants to make 
something of himself—he goes into politics, for in- 
stance. At eighty he begins to think life is pretty 
good, after all. And at ninety he’s sure of it.” 

I want to call your attention especially to that 
statement of this great man, that to take the ad- 
verse experiences of life as loving discipline from 
our heavenly Father makes a man or a woman 
wiser, stronger, and finer in every way. God has 
this world and this whole universe at work build- 
ing men and women, and He will not fail on you 
if you will give Him a fair chance. 

Angela Morgan has written a really great poem 
entitled When Nature Wants a Man. Where it 
reads ‘“ Nature” think ‘‘ God” and you will get 
its great message. 


GOD’S CALL TO MANHOOD 131 


“When Nature wants to drill a man 
And thrill a man 
And skill a man, 
When Nature wants to mold a man 
To play the noblest part; 
When she yearns with all her heart 
To create so great and bold a man 
That all the world shall praise— 
Watch her method, watch her ways! 
How she ruthlessly perfects 
Whom she royally elects; 
How she hammers him and hurts him 
And with mighty blows converts him 
Into trial shapes of clay which only Nature understands— 
W ishing tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching 

anas !— 

How she bends, but never breaks, 
When his good she undertakes 
How she uses whom she chooses 
And with every purpose fuses him, 
By every art induces him 
To try his splendor out— 
Nature knows what she’s about. 


“When Nature wants to take a man 
And shake a man 
And wake a man; 
When Nature wants to make a man 
To do the Future’s will; 
When she tries with all her skill, 
And she yearns with all her soul 
To create him large and whole : 
With what cunning she prepares him! 
How she goads and never spares him, 
How she whets him and she frets him 
And in poverty begets him 
How she often disappoints 
Whom she sacredly anoints, 
With what wisdom she will hide him, 
Never minding what betide him 
Though his genius sob with slighting and his pride may 

not forget! 

Bids him struggle harder yet. 
Makes him lonely 
So that only 
God’s high messages shall reach him 
So that she shall surely teach him 
What the Hierarchy planned, 
Though he may not understand 


132 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Gives him passions to command— 
How remorseless she spurs him, 
With terrific ardor stirs him 
When she poignantly prefers him! 


“When Nature wants to name a man 
And fame a man 
And tame a man; 
When Nature wants to shame a man 
To do his heavenly best . 
When she tries the highest test 
That her reckoning may bring— 
When she wants a god or king !— 
How she reins him and restrains him 
So his body scarce contains him 
While she fires him 
And inspires him! 
Keeps him yearning, ever burning for a tantalizing goal— 
Lures and lacerates his soul. 
Sets a challenge for his spirit, 
Draws it higher when he’s near tt— 
Makes a jungle, that he clear it; 
Makes a desert, that he fear it 
And subdue it if he can— 
So doth Nature make a man. 
Then, to test his spirit’s wrath, 
Hurls a mountain in his path— 
Puts a bitter choice before him 
And, relentless, standeth o’er him— 
“Climb or perish!’ So she says . 
Watch her purpose, watch her ways! 


“ Nature’s plan is wondrous kind 
Could we understand her mind . 
Fools are they who call her blind. 
When his feet are torn and bleeding 
Yet his spirit mounts unheeding. 
All his higher powers speeding, 
Blazing newer paths and fine; 
When the force that is divine 
Leaps to challenge every failure and his ardor still is sweet, 
And love and hope are burning in the presence of 
defeat cra 
Lo, the crisis! Lo, the shout 
That must call the leader out. 
When the people need salvation 
Doth he come to lead the nation 
Then doth Nature show her plan 
When the world has found—a man!” 


GOD’S CALL TO MANHOOD 133 


I 


In the little story we are considering Jesus tells 
us there is a father and two sons, and he comes to 
one of them and says in the language of our text, 
“Son, go work today in my vineyard.” And he 
was not a good boy. He was a spoiled lad. He 
had a rude, harsh, rebellious spirit. He lacked 
the filial spirit of obedient love, and he said, “‘ I 
will not.” But afterward “‘ he repented himself.” 
Please notice the peculiarity of that expression: 
‘““He repented himself.” We sometimes get a 
wrong idea of repentance, as though it must come 
to us from without, some strange wind of the Holy 
Spirit that will sweep us off our feet and force us 
into repentance. That is a mistake. God will not 
force any sinner into repentance. He will send 
the still, small voice of conscience to speak to him, 
as He did to Elijah in the mountain cavern on 
Mount Horeb; or the spirit-burning message of. 
some earnest preacher, as He did through Peter’s 
lips on the day of Pentecost; but the sinner must 
_ repent himself. That is in your hands. Repent- 
ance, real Biblical repentance, is to stop doing evil 
and turn around and begin to do right. And that 
is what this boy did. No matter what your sin, 
if you will do that, the Holy Spirit will lead you 
through all mistakes and blunders of the head into 
salvation and to successful work in God’s vine- 
yard. 

Simeon Blas was the owner of a cockpit in the 


134 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Philippines. He was an unusually bright and 
forceful man, but a wicked man. A missionary, 
Dr. Marvin Rader, came along preaching Christ 
as the Saviour of sinners. Simeon was captivated. 
He fell in love with Jesus, accepted Him, and went 
to work at once with all the ardor of his soul to 
win others to accept Christ. He was soon the 
leading spirit in his church. 

And then one day a man came to Dr. Rader and 
said: ‘‘Do you know that your chief exhorter, 
your ‘ big man’ in the church at Malabon, is also 
the big cock-fight man and gambler of the town? 
He owns the big cockpit of Malabon, and every 
morning after he gets through preaching he invites 
the crowd to the cock-fight and takes them over.” 
That was a stunner for the new missionary. Here, 
as he found upon investigation, was his most 
powerful church member, the richest man in town, 
the most respected man in town, the man who had 
built the church with his own money, also the 
owner and manager of the town cockpit. 

It was a hard thing to do, especially through an 
interpreter, but Dr. Rader called Simeon Blas 
into his home. He spent two hours with him one 
night trying to show him the church’s view-point 
on the cockpit. It was absolutely like a flash out 
of a blue sky to Simeon. He had never thought 
of what he was doing as wrong. “ Why, it’s our 
national sport! The friars attend; they gamble 
on it; they own cockpits; they attend it after 


GOD’S CALL TO MANHOOD 135 


mass. The Bible doesn’t say that it is wrong, 
does it? I cannot find where it does.” The poor 
fellow was bewildered. Nor could the missionary 
find any place in the Bible where it said that it was 
wrong to have a cockpit. Naturally it was not 
there. But after two hours Dr. Rader sent Simeon 
away with the matter deeply on his conscience, 
and to this day he cannot tell how he did it. 

For a week Simeon came to Dr. Rader’s home 
every night. He was fighting his great fight. The 
fight was between his cockpit and his Christ. Giv- 
ing up the cockpit meant the loss of thousands of 
pesos a month to him. It was like an old tree 
tearing up its roots to move to new soil. Then 
suddenly he stopped coming. 

When Dr. Rader found also that he had stopped 
coming to church, as he says, “‘ My heart stood 
still. That meant ruin to our church, I was sure. 
If Simeon Blas stopped coming to church, it would 
end everything in that town, for he was the big- 
gest man in the town! 

“One night I went to church and Simeon was 
not there. He had been scheduled to speak. I 
said to one of the elders, ‘ Where is Simeon?’ He 
replied, ‘Simeon told me as I came by his house 
that he was through with the church. He is not 
going to attend any more!’ I struggled through 
the service, my heart sick. Dozens of men got up 
and walked out when Simeon did not preach. He 
was their idol. 


136 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


‘““Two weeks passed. Simeon no longer came 
each evening to my house as in the old days. / Our 
hearts were torn. We were utterly discouraged. 
Then one evening, as we sat eating our supper, I 
heard steps downstairs, and they sounded familiar. 
They came up the outside stairs. I knew by the 
steps that it was Simeon. He knocked and I called 
for him to enter. He stepped in. His face was 
worn and haggard. I knew that he had gone 
through a terrific struggle during those weeks that 
he had given up the church. It was all marked in 
lines on his fine face. He came over to me and 
took my hand in his. I can feel the grip yet. 
Then he looked down into my face with an unut- 
terable question in his big brown eyes. I know 
now that he was saying through that look, ‘ I won- 
der, O missionary, if you will understand what I 
am going to say to you? I wonder if I can make 
you know, since we cannot speak each cther’s lan- 
guage?’ Then with tears streaming over his 
brown, sun-burned cheeks, he broke into speech, 
trying to tell me in three languages what had hap- 
pened to him. 

““*Vamoose cockpit! Cockpit all gone! Jesus 
Christ has come into my heart forever! Cockpit 
no more! Jesus Christ everything now!’ Then he 
sobbed aloud and so did I. I not only sobbed but 
I shouted! That man had actually sold every in- 
terest he had in that cockpit. He had won his 
battle. From that day to this he has been getting 


GOD’S CALL TO MANHOOD 137 


richer and richer. He has been one of our most 
loyal preachers and best Christians. He gave up 
the cockpit for Christ; and some day that’s 
what’s going to happen all over the islands, thanks 
to our missionary work!” 


Something like that happened to this boy Jesus 
tells us about, who went to work at last in his 
father’s vineyard. When a sinner repents himself, 
God is always ready to forgive. 

But there was a second boy, you say. Yes, I 
know, but he did not amount to much. I would 
not speak of him, only no doubt some of you are 
the living, breathing image of him, and unless you 
arouse yourself to repent and really get to work in 
God’s vineyard, will never amount to any more 
than he did. 

When the father came to the second son with 
the same command as he had given the first, ‘‘ Son, 
go work today in my vineyard,” he smiled genially 
and said, “I go, sir,” but he never went. There 
are many like him today. They wish the church 
well, they say they are going to be Christians, but 
life is passing and they do nothing. They are like 
rotten logs, the more nails you drive in them, the 
more nails will come out. O man! woman! rouse 
out of your complacent lethargy before it is too 
late! 


XI 
THE BANQUET OF GOD: 


CuHRIstT’s STORY OF THE KING’s WEDDING FEAST 


“The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain 
king, who made a marriage feast for his son, and sent 
forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the 
marriage feast: and they would not come. Again he 
sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them that are 
bidden, Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen 
and my fatlings are killed and all things are ready: 
come to the marriage feast. But they made light of it, 
and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to 
his merchandise; and the rest laid hold on his servants, 
and treated them shamefully, and killed them. But the 
king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed 
those murderers, and burned their city. Then saith he 
to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that 
were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore unto 
the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall 
find, bid to the marriage feast. And those servants went 
out into the highways, and gathered together all as many 
as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding 
was filled with guests. But when the king came in to 
behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on 
a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how 
camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? 

Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into 
the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and the 
gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few 
chosen.’—MAtTTHEW 22: 1-14. 


HATEVER historical meaning may 
have been communicated to the minds 
and hearts of those to whom Jesus 

first told this story, for us today it has one great, 


certain message. It speaks to us about the great 
138 


THE BANQUET OF GOD 139 


feast of salvation provided for us through the com- 
ing of Jesus Christ, the Gospel feast purchased by 
His birth and life and sacrificial death and resur- 
rection from the dead. The generation of His own 
people who were bidden to the feast of mercy re- 
fused it and crucified the Lord of life and glory 
and hounded His disciples to death; but God’s 
love for humanity was so deep and true that He 
has sent forth the Gospel mission to the ends of 
the earth, to all the partings of the ways of life, 
with the divine invitation to come to the feast of 
heaven’s mercy. No man is so poor or low or 
ignorant or unworthy that he may not come if he 
will, for the invitation of God’s love is without 
limit. “‘ Whosoever will may come.” 

Let us consider the Gospel feast: let us study 
the menu and consider the food that waits on the 
table of God’s banquet. 

First, there is forgiveness for our sins. We have 
all broken God’s law. We are sinners against God. 
We may forget it sometimes during the day, but 
at night, when we lie down to rest and seek death’s 
twin brother, sleep, we are conscious that we are 
sinners against God and wish we were forgiven. 
In times of emergency, when sudden danger faces, 
we wish our sins were forgiven. Those brothers 
of Joseph who had sold their young brother to be 
a slave in Egypt, when in their great trouble, fac- 
ing starvation, they came down to that same Egypt 
to buy corn to save their lives, and Joseph, though 


140 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


unknown to them, spoke harshly and shut them 
up together, were true to human nature when they 
harked back in their memories to that sin of 
twenty or thirty years ago and said to each other, 
“We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in 
that we saw the distress of his soul when he be- 
sought us, and we would not hear.” ‘That old sin, 
unforgiven, hung like a weight on their hearts, 
pushing them down. 

Oh, if there were a market in any city where 
men could go and buy for money forgiveness of 
their sins, it would become a greater center and 
have a thousand times as many pilgrims as Mecca 
ever knew! There is no such market. You can- 
not buy at any price the pardon of God, but you 
may have free, without money and without price, 
the full forgiveness of your sins at the Banquet 
of God. 

Yes, and the very next dish to forgiveness is 
joy. I have been permitted to see hundreds— 
aye! in the aggregate thousands—of men and 
women as they partook of that wonderful dish, the 
forgiveness of their sins, and I never saw one yet 
who did not immediately take the next dish—the 
dish of joy. I have seen them sometimes shout 
aloud the praises of God at that moment, and I 
have seen others just look up with shining, radiant 
faces that glowed with “a light that never was on 
sea or land,” and others just cry happy tears min- | 
gled with smiles like the rainbow when God gives 


THE BANQUET OF GOD 141 


sunshine after rain, but every one of them feasted 
on joy,—a joy unutterable and full of glory. If 
there were any manufacturing establishment in 
any land on earth that had a prescription for joy 
like that, this poor, sorrow-stricken world would 
build fleets of great ships and send them to the 
nearest ocean harbor, and build railroads to the 
very door, that might carry train loads and ship 
loads of joy to the broken hearts and despairing 
souls of men and women throughout the world. 
But there is no such manufactory. Thank God! 
you may have that perfect joy that casts out all 
fear and bids sorrow be gone and makes despair 
slink away and immortal hope spring anew from 
the dust without money and without price at this 
precious Banquet of God! 

Hope is the next and third dish on this wonder- 
ful table. And as you partake of it everything 
seems possible. It is like Madeline Miller’s song, 
The Feel of Spring: 

“ Spring’s just around the corner, 
I can feel it in the ar! 


A hushed, expectant feeling 
Like the atmosphere of prayer. 


“One God-filled gust 
Of wind and the thrust 
Of rain, quick-pelting, driving 
Earth’s sweet greenness into thriving, 
Heaven's birds into sun-lit singing, 
People’s laughter into ringing, 
New ambitions strongly springing— 
Just one gale from God, old World, 
And Spring’s green flags will be unfurled. 


142 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“ Spring’s just around the corner, 
I can feel it in the air! 
A hushed, expectant feeling 
Like the atmosphere of prayer.” 

It is an atmosphere like that a man or woman 
breathes into the nostrils of the soul when he or 
she has partaken of the forgiveness of God and 
feasted on “ the joy of the Lord.” The devil had 
been telling them that the Christian life was im- 
possible for them, that they were too weak and 
wicked to rise up into the Christian realm of 
goodness and love. Now they know that he has 
lied to them all along. Now that their sins are 
forgiven, the horrible weight of their transgres- 
sions lifted away, and they are free from the 
galling chains of sinful habit and have entered into 
a glorious atmosphere of light and love and hope, 
they understand how Paul would say, “‘ I can do all 
things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” 

And then the forgiven, joyous, hope-inspired 
soul eats gladly of the wonderful dish of Faith 
and goes forth to life’s journey with a new and 
glorious guide and companion. One who had been 
at the Banquet of God and started out with Faith 
gives us his experience: 


“ Faith and I went forth to sow, 
Early in the morning; — 
All the streams ran very low, 
Doubt looked on with scorning. 


* ¢ See, he said, ‘A barren field, 
All the flowers are blighted; 
Thorns alone the ground will yield; 
Thus is faith requited’ 


Ss cc 


THE BANQUET OF GOD 143 


“* Nay, said Faith, ‘I hear the rain 
Singing in the mountain, 
And the dry and thirsty plain 
Laughs to meet a fountain, 


“* Ha!’ cried Doubt, ‘that same old tune; 
But if you remember, 
Frost can show a smiling June 
Frowning as December, 


“Then with fainting heart I thought, 
‘Faith and I must sever’; 
But with steadfast trust she wrought, 
Whispering softly, ‘ Never!’ 


“Then I turned from Doubt, and lo! 
By me stood the Master, 
And I heard Him saying, ‘Go!’ 
While Faith held me faster. 


“ Joyful now we onward press, 
Faith and I together, 
Sowing seed of righteousness 
In all kinds of weather.” 

This song of the experience of the Christian soul 
in companionship with Christian faith suggests a 
very wonderful thing about the Banquet of God. 
It is a movable feast. 

Do you recall that wonderful story of the 
exodus of the Hebrew children out of Egypt? 
how, to protect them from their enemies who fol- 
lowed after them to drive them back to the galling 
Slavery from which God had called Moses to lead 
them, God intervened at the hour of their greatest 
need with a pillar of fire to guide them and put 
behind them a pillar of cloud that shielded them 
from their enemies? The record says: “ And the 
angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, 
removed and went behind them; and the pillar of 


144 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


cloud removed from before them, and stood behind 
them; and it came between the camp of Egypt 
and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud 
and the darkness, yet it gave light by night: and 
the one came not near the other all the night.” 
It is like that with this wonderful Banquet of God. 
It is a movable feast that follows with us all the 
way through the wilderness of life’s journey and 
changes the wilderness experience into a joyous 
adventure. 

On the tables of God’s Banquet that will follow 
us through all the march of life there are dishes 
that meet the needs of every season of life and 
every emergency of life that may come upon us. 

I was reading awhile ago the story of a Chris- 
tian minister who had visited a leper colony which 
has been established in our own country to care 
for those who have contracted that most loath- 
some disease. His story warmed my heart and 
filled my eyes with happy tears as I realized that 
this movable Banquet of God kept pace even in 
that loneliest of human experiences and did not 
fail to make good Paul’s wonderful promise when 
he says: ‘‘ My God shall supply every need of 
yours according to his riches in glory in Christ 
Jesus.”? The minister who tells this story says that 
it was an inspiration such as one does not get by 
preaching to the ordinary congregation. He began 
the meeting by asking for favorite hymns. The 
first song called for was Standing on the Promises 





THE BANQUET OF GOD 145 


of Christ My Saviour. He looked at the man who 
called for it. His disease was in the advanced 
- state. His face was horribly disfigured. The nose 
was gone. ‘“‘ Why do you like this hymn espe- 
cially?” the minister asked. ‘‘ Because I have 
nothing else to stand on; my case is hopeless; I 
have no friends, no prospects for anything in this 
life.””’ The minister then asked, “‘ Are the promises 
of Christ firm enough to stand on in your case? ” 
His face beamed with joy as he replied, ‘‘ They 
are stronger than the Republican Platform.” (It 
was shortly after the Chicago Convention and the 
second day of the San Francisco Convention.) 
‘“* How about the Democratic Platform? ” shouted 
one from the other corner of the chapel. The 
_ minister now saw how keenly these men follow the 
political events of the day. But together they 
came to the conclusion that Christ’s platform was 
sounder than that of any political party. 

“Who has another favorite?” Count Your 
Many Blessings; Name Them One by One, a 
woman this time. ‘‘ And why this song, sister? ” 
“ Because, when we count our blessings on our 
fingers, we soon find out that we have not enough 
_ fingers to hang them on.” How refreshing to come 

to such a place and hear the inmates sing of 
Showers of Blessing, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, 
was called for by a mere youth. The minister 
looked at him and felt like weeping. He was well 
_ dressed, had an intelligent look, was well educated, 


146 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


came out of a fine family. It is said of the Lord 
that He is no respecter of persons. Neither does 
leprosy regard blood, color of skin, social stand- 
ing, age or beauty. The preacher said, ‘‘ And this 
is the song that gives you the most comfort? ” 
“Oh, yes,” he replied, “I am young, a graduate 
of . . . College, my parents are well-to-do, but 
my disease is far advanced. ‘ Other Refuge have 
I none.’” ‘‘ You all sing so earnestly I feel we 
ought to have another song.” J Need Thee Every — 
Hour was now called for, before the last word had 
passed his lips. He was a splendid specimen of 
physical manhood! To all appearances hale and 
hearty. ‘‘ Brother Pastor, I want to tell you why 
I call for this song,” he volunteered. ‘“‘ You see 
I am strong and look well, but I am diseased. I 
could be at home, but I love my family too much 
to expose them to the danger of leprosy. So when 
my case was diagnosed as leprosy, I came here at 
once. I may have to stay here ten years or longer 
before I am completely cured,—if then. When I 
think of my wife and baby, my heart nearly breaks 
and I lose courage. Then I turn to this song and 
feel better.” 

As I read that wonderful story of the sufficiency 
of the grace of God under all circumstances, I 
thanked God that the glorious Banquet of God is 
a movable feast that will never fail us on life’s 
journey. . 

There is another feature of this wonderful ban- 


THE BANQUET OF GOD 147 


quet of God’s mercy. There are dishes there so 
full of vitamins, so full of the elixir of immortal 
life, that it changes the old order of the world’s 
thinking. We look forward after eating at God’s 
table, not toward death as a disaster, but toward 
it aS a sunrise, a gateway into an eternal dawn. 

David, even in his day, caught a glimpse of that 
glorious truth when he sang in his last poem, re- 
corded in the twenty-third chapter of Second 
Samuel, singing of a good man’s career, “‘ He shall 
be as the light of the morning, when the sun 
ariseth, a morning without clouds.” 

John Ruskin had spiritual insight when he 
wrote, “‘ Why should we wear black for the guests 
of God?” Why, indeed? 

The house we live in must grow old, as houses 
will; but there need be no marks of age on the 
soul. I agree with Ida Thomas: 


“Time makes wrinkles on the face, 
That no person can erase; 
Bends the back and halts the limb, 
Causes eyesight to grow dim, 
Takes our color and our grace, 
Leads us paths we caw’t retrace. 
Yet the fault is not alone 
Time’s. A part of it’s our own, 
For we fill our lives with worry, 
Push and pull and fume and hurry. 
Even at that Time is not kind, 
As each one will, sometime, find. 
But though he may yearly trace 
His initials on our face, 
Yet it does not matter much 
Since our souls he cannot touch; 
We can keep them, if we choose, 
Young and fresh; they need not lose 


148 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


One iota of the zest 

Youth has planted in the breast. 
Time can never get control 

Of the wrinkles of the soul.” 


Age has food that youth and middle age cannot 
know. Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, so long editor of 
The British Weekly, that spiritual expert who had 
so rapturously feasted at the Banquet of God, 
wrote joyfully near the last of his feasting on this 
side the gates of dawn: 


\f “High Thoughts! 

, They visit us; 
In moments when the soul is dim and darkened 
They come to bless, 
After the vanities to which we hearkened. 


“When weariness hath come upon the spirit 
(Those hours of darkness which we all inherit), 
Bursts there not through a glint of warm sunshine, 
A winged thought which bids us not repine? 


“In joy and gladness, 
In mirth and sadness, 
Come signs and tokens; 
Life’s angel brings 
Upon its wings 
Those bright communings 
The soul doth keep— 
Those thoughts of heaven so pure and deep.” 


And God links heaven up with earth so that it 
becomes not a strange region, but a glorious ful- 
fillment of life’s feast on earth. Clarence Flynn 
puts it beautifully clear in his song of The Making 
of Heaven: 

“God took the paths we longed in vain to go, 

And built a golden street beside a river. 


He took the gates Time closed to us below, 
And built a portal that shall stand forever. 


THE BANQUET OF GOD 149 


“ He took the longings that were vague and dim, 
And hedged about by human limitation; 
And built a world without a scar or rim 
To be our everlasting habitation. . 


“ He took the bitter pangs that life has cost; 
Transformed them into joy, and song, and wonder. 

He took the treasured blessings we have lost, 

And planted them beside the waters yonder. 


“ He took our thoughts of hills, and woods, and streams; 
And made them real, with added beauty given. 
He took the shattered fragments of our dreams, 
And built a city fair, and called it Heaven.” 

My friends, I call you with all my powers, with 
all the earnest passion of my soul, to come now 
to the “ Banquet of God.” All things are now 
ready. Every delicious dish that fed the soul of 
your mother and gave her the graces of tenderness 
and patient love, every dish that strengthened 
your noble Christian father to be a good man and 
true, is waiting on the table of divine mercy for 
you. The wedding garment waits in God’s wait- 
ing room now for you. It is yours for the asking. 
Do not risk the outer darkness and the gnashing 
teeth of remorse without it; but now, while God’s 
table waits and the very angels of God are waiting 
tenderly to serve you, come to the Banquet of 
God! 


AIT 


THE FLAMING TORCH OF A TRIUM- 
PHANT PERSONALITY: 


CHRIST’s STORY OF THE TEN VIRGINS 


“Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto 
ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went forth to 
meet the bridegroom. And five of them were foolish, 
and five were wise. For the foolish, when they took 
their lamps, took no oil with them: but the wise took 
oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the 
bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. But 
at midnight there is a cry, Behold, the bridegroom! 
Come ye forth to meet him. Then all those virgins 
arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said 
unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are 
going out. But the wise answered, saying, Peradven- 
ture there will not be enough for us and you: go ve 
rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And 
while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came; and 
they that were ready went in with him to the marriage 
feast: and the door was shut. Afterwards come also 
the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But 
he answered and said, Verily I say unto you. I know 
you not. Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor 
the hour.’—MatrHew 25: 1-13. 


IFFORD PINCHOT, Governor of Penn- 
sylvania, relates in a magazine article the 
story of how he was once riding with a 

lumberman in the mountains of western North 

Carolina. The lumberman was not a great talker, 

and neither he nor Pinchot had said anything for 

a long time, when suddenly he burst out: “ Say, 


there’s a lot of good readin’ in the Bible, ain’t 
150 


FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 151 


there?” And among that good reading is this oft- 
repeated story of the Ten Virgins which Jesus told 
so long ago and which is as applicable to us as it 
was to the people to whom it was spoken. 

These ten girls were to outward appearance as 
much alike as ten grains of corn shelled from the 
same ear. They were all virgins. They were all 
invited to the wedding. They were all dressed for 
the occasion. They all carried lamps trimmed and 
burning. They are all delayed on their way to the 
wedding festivities. ‘They all very properly slept 
while there was nothing to do but wait for the com- 
ing of the bridgeroom. 

But when the call came at midnight, “ Behold 
the bridegroom cometh,” and they awoke to that 
emergency, they immediately fell into two groups: 
five who had wisely made careful preparation and 
had brought sufficient oil in reserve, and five who 
had foolishly started out with insufficient oil and 
whose lamps were now gone out at midnight when 
Stores were closed and there was no opportunity to 
buy. The five wise virgins went in triumphantly 
to the wedding, while the five foolish girls failed 
in disgrace and sorrow. 

Jesus interprets this story by making it a warn- 
ing to all who would serve Him through all time 
to be watchful and alert and make due prepara- 
tion, so that whenever He shall call us we shall be 
ready to meet any emergency with honor and with 
joyous triumph. 


152 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


In the light of this parable, how foolish and un- 
profitable the quarrel that has gone on at times 
for centuries as to whether our Lord is coming 
soon or may in His wisdom be long delayed. We 
all know that He will soon come to us, and that 
we know not the day nor the hour when the call 
may come. We may be sure also that there will 
be frequent emergencies in our own lives when we 
will have unexpected opportunities to be of ser- 
vice to our fellows and the age in which we live, 
if we are watchful and if we have built up a char- 
acter and personality strong and rich in resources 
that can be drawn upon for the blessing of others. 

I think we may get the greatest good from our 
study of this remarkable story by noting the char- 
acteristics of the personality suggested by it as the 
one that will triumph in the stress of life. 


I 


First, it must be an alert personality. If you 
will read the chapter immediately preceding this, 
you will note that the Master in His interpretation 
of the parable of the fig tree closes it with a sim- 
ilar warning: ‘“‘ Therefore, be ye also ready; For 
in an hour when ye think not the Son of man 
cometh.” 

And in the wonderful story of the talents re- 
lated in this same chapter, Jesus emphasizes the 
need of an alert, wide-awake personality, always 
ready to find opportunities for serving Him in the 





FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 153 


needs of our fellow-men. He assures us that in 
the great day of final accounting we shall be re- 
warded for finding and seizing upon opportunities 
of serving the very poorest of our fellow-men as 
though we were doing it for Christ Himself, and 
that He will say unto us: ‘“‘ Come, ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world: for I was 
hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and 
ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took 
me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and 
ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came 
unto me.” 

Nothing could portray to us the need of alert- 
ness more clearly than this dramatic picture of the 
Day of Judgment which Jesus places so graph- 
ically before our imagination. And how often 
these opportunities for service arise. Dr. A. Ed- 
win Keigwin, the successful pastor for many years 
of the West End Presbyterian Church in New 
York City, tells this striking story which is a vivid 
illustration of our theme. Dr. Keigwin says: 


“The other day I happened to be in Madison Square at 
the noon hour. The usual number of street meetings were 
in progress. I circulated about, curious to know what the 
other fellow was thinking. Directly across from the Metro- 
politan Tower, I came upon a group of extraordinary size 
which a long-haired individual was loudly haranguing. As I 
drew near he was shouting at the top of his voice: ‘ There 
is no God! There never was a God! I dare any one to 
stand up here on this box and prove that there’s a God!’ 
He paused, out of breath, and glared at the crowd. Nobody 
stirred. I confess it with personal shame. I suppose we 
were transfixed with horror at such a display of God-hating. 


154 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


* Then, with a laugh, the speaker flung the taunt at the 
crowd: ‘See, God hasn’t a friend among you!’ 

“The words were scarcely off his tongue when a fresh 
young voice rang out, ‘ Yes, He has!’ and. a Hebrew lad el- 
bowed his way to the center of the throng, where he was 
profusely, although sarcastically, welcomed by his challenger, 
and invited to mount the box and state his proofs. 

“ Straightening his somewhat stooped shoulders and throw- 
ing back his head he began: ‘This guy says there ain’t no 
God. He lies! J know there’s a God. He says God hasn’t 
a friend in this crowd. He lies! I am a friend of God’s. 
He says no one can prove there’s a God. He lies! I can 
prove it. God i is in here right now (vigorously beating his 
breast). He is saying, “ Give it to him, Ikey. That fellow 
can’t put such stuff over on you and me.” ‘ 

“It was a dramatic scene.” 


( Then Dr. Keigwin goes on to say: 


x All in a moment leadership had passed from the blatant 
unbeliever to the boy of faith and vision. The street orator 
was unable to recapture his crowd. Each attempt to speak 
was met by a broadside of ridicule. Finally, some one with 
imagination started the dear old Christian hymn, ‘ Nearer, 
my God, to Thee!’ It swelled from lip to lip until a mighty 
chorus rolled up against the great tower, and broke in a 
spray of benediction upon every heart.” 

What would you have done if you had been there? 
Would you have been sufficiently alert to your 
business as the friend of God to have had the 
courage of that little East Side Jew to stand up 
for God when He was assailed? Surely we should 
be more alert than the Hebrew whose eyes have 
been holden to the beauty and glory of God in the 


face of Jesus Christ. 


II 


Our study should also suggest to us the need of 
a personality rich in reserve resources. It should 
Open our eyes to the danger of a little-oil religion. 


FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 155 


These five foolish virgins had lamps and they 
started out with a little oil. Their lamps were 
burning when they started and were still burning 
when the delay came. They were burning when 
they went to sleep. But when they awoke at mid- 
night to the great emergency, their oil was all gone 
and their lamps had gone out. 

How many people there are like that! 

Some people have the little-oil religion of senti- 
ment merely. It will flame up in their speech on 
occasions, and you would think they were real 
Christians, but it will not stand the midnight test. 

Some people have the little-oil religion of feel- 
ing only. Some people are just a bundle of feel- 
ings. Now I am not saying anything against 
sentiment or feeling. Our hearts must be aroused 
and engaged with all the emotions and feeling in 
our love for Christ and our fellow-men; but that 
is not enough to carry us through. Our heads, our 
consciences, our deep determination, our wills to 
do our duty to God and Christ and our fellows, 
must possess our very souls if our religion is to 
endure the night of waiting. 

Some have a little-oil religion of fear, and it is 
right that we fear God and proper that we fear 
to do evil, for punishment does wait on sin and 
disobedience; but something more powerful than 
fear, a faith and a love that is the master of fear, 
is necessary to make a triumphant Christian per- 
sonality. 


156 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


Some have a little-oil religion of ceremonial ob- 
servance. On Sunday it is hard to tell them from 
real Christians, but on week days the difference is 
apparent. 

Character alone can stand the real test of life. 
You cannot borrow or buy or steal, or for very 
long sham, character. Some people, like Robert 
Ingersoll, have sneered at this story of the ten 
virgins because the wise virgins did not divide 
their oil with their foolish sisters. But you can- 
not borrow character in any bank or exchange. 
It must be built up by every day’s steadiness in 
resisting temptation and the doing of duty one 
day after another. It is so in every avenue of our 
life. And it is always the reserve resources that 
make the difference between a big personality and 
a weakling. You see it illustrated everywhere. 
One man is careless of his health, dissipates his 
energies, and when a great physical emergency 
comes he goes down in disaster. He has no endur- 
ance. He has wasted his resources. Another man 
is careful about what he eats and drinks, builds 
up his physical reserves through proper exercise 
and care, and when an accident or an epidemic 
comes, and the weaklings die, he survives, and the 
doctor says, “ It was his strong constitution that 
pulled him through.” He had oil in reserve in 
his vessel. 

Dr. Robert Collyer tells how he once came 
across the Atlantic on an ocean steamship and for 


FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 157 


most of the journey the weather was so pleasant 
and all things ran so easily that he and most of 
the passengers thought they were as good sailors 
as the captain. But when a great storm struck 
the vessel as they neared Cape Race, and all night 
long the staunch ship shuddered and panted 
through the wild waters, and when next morning, 
peering deckward, he saw the faithful captain 
standing by the mainmast with his arms twisted 
about the ropes, swinging in the tempest, watching 
it with steady eyes, alert and cheerful while others 
grovelled in the despair of seasickness, and knew 
that he had been on deck all night, turning his 
ship round in the teeth of the tempest and the 
trough of the sea so that she might escape the 
awful strain and the avalanche of waters which 
were filling other men with dismay,—then he 
knew the captain. The reserves were coming out. 
Here was a man nothing could daunt, and who, if 
the worst had come, would have seen first to the 
safety of his passengers and been the last man to 
leave the wreck. The weather-beaten old captain 
had reserve forces equal to the demand. He had 
oil stored up for the emergency. 

We, too, must store up reserves of spiritual 
strength. 

Do you recall that first Psalm of David’s in the 
Book of Psalms, where he compares the righteous 
man to a tree planted by the river, whose leaves 
remain green when the drought turns all the rest 


158 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


of the world brown? Thus we must run our roots 
deep into the Bible, and into habits of prayer and 
spiritual communion and fellowship, so that no 
matter who else fails and gives up in discourage- 
ment, we shall stand steadfast, and our lamp of 
hope and courage will not go out. 


III 


Our study suggests that the triumphant Chris- 
tian must be a flaming torch for God and Christ 
for the blessing of humanity. We must watch for 
our Lord’s call in the spirit of our Lord. I know 
of only one portrait of Jesus Christ drawn for us 
in the Bible. That is drawn by John, who was 
known in the group of Christ’s personal friends as 
‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.”’ I suppose John 
knew Jesus more intimately than any other man. 
We ought, therefore, to have more confidence in 
his memory of the face and personality of Jesus 
than in the memory of any one else. Now if you 
turn to the first chapter of the Book of Revela- 
tion, a book written by John, you may see the pic- - 
ture which John carried in his memory of the 
Christ he had known and loved all his life. John 
had a vision which he records in these words: 

“ And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And 
having turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the 
midst of the candlesticks one like unto a Son of man, clothed 
with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the 
breasts with a golden girdle. And his head and his hair 


were as white wool, white as snow; and his eyes were as a 
flame of fire; and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it 


FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 159 


had been refined in a furnace; and his voice as the voice 
of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars; 
and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; 
and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. 
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And 
he laid his right hand upon me saying, Fear not; I am the 
first and the last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and 
behold, I am alive forevermore.” 


When John saw that vision with its marvelous 
personality he knew that it was Jesus. But he 
never would have recognized that face and those 
eyes as the face and eyes of Jesus if he, himself, 
had not seen Jesus when His eyes flamed with fire. 
And he would never have recognized that voice as 
the voice of Jesus if he had not remembered when 
Jesus in His sublime earnestness and splendid pas- 
_ sion spoke with a voice that had in it something 
of the thunder tones of an ocean-storm. He would 
not have recognized that shining face as the face 
of Jesus if he had not seen the face of Jesus when 
it glowed like the sun in its glory. 

All the effeminate faces that artists and sculp- 
tors have given us of Jesus are untrue to John’s 
memory of Him and untrue to the stories of Him 
that are told in the four Gospels. True, the Gos- 
pels portray the love and beauty and tenderness 
of Jesus to little children, His pity of the sick and 
the poor, and His sympathy for the fallen and the 
sorrowing. But it was the tenderness and pity 
and sympathy of a great, virile, flaming personal- 
ity showing mercy to the needs of others. 

It is our highest duty as well as our noblest 
privilege to build up and show to the world that 


> 
eS 


160 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


same kind of personality—a personality that is not 
only good, but aggressively good. We must set 
our faces against sin and evil with the same dar- 
ing courage and with the same faith in God that 
Jesus did. 

When the seventy came back from their mission 
of healing and mercy on which Christ had sent 
them, and rejoiced to Him that even the devils 
had been cast out at their word, Jesus said, “I 
beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven.” 

To the eye of Christ’s faith, He beheld the final 
victory over evil. So we, too, may live so close 
to God that we shall go forth with flaming eyes 
and radiant faces where there is already reflected 
the victory of our faith. 

Just now the heart and conscience of the whole 
civilized world seems to be awakening to a new 
horror of war and a new sense of our duty to 
banish it and make it impossible. It is high time 
that we were thus awakened to the cruel and 
wicked waste of war. An English chaplain in the 
great World War has published a volume of 
poems which he calls The Sorrows of God, in 
which he sings of war and its unutterable waste: 


A “Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain, 


3 


% Waste of Patience, waste of Pain, 
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health, 
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth, 
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears, 
Waste of Youth’s most precious years, 
Waste of ways the Saints have trod, 
Waste of Glory, waste of God— 

War!” 


FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 161 


And from The Sorrows of God through a tender 
faith, Chaplain Studdert Kennedy comes at last 
to what in his soldier language he calls a com- 
radeship with the “‘ Comrade God ”’: 


“Only in Him can I find home to hide me, en 
Who on the Cross was slain to rise again, 
Only with Him, my comrade, God, beside me, 
Can I go forth to war with sin and pain.” 


When we face the sorrows and struggles of life 
in that fellowship, we come to know God and 
know that the heart of God is kind to us and is 
always seeking our good. At first when Chaplain 
Kennedy faced the sins of war he cried: 


“ How can it be that God can reign in glory, 
Calmly content with what His love has done, 
Reading unmoved the piteous shameful story, 
All the vile deeds men do beneath the sun? 


“ Are there no tears in the heart of the Eternal? 
Is there no pain to pierce the soul of God? 
Then must He be a fiend of hell infernal, 
Beating the earth to pieces with His rod.” 


But when he comes to know Jesus he under- 
stands and is able to sing: 


“ Father, if He, the Christ, were Thy Revealer, 
Truly, the First Begotten of the Lord, 
Then must Thou be a Suff’rer and a Healer, 
Pierced to the heart by the sorrow of the sword. 


“ Then must it mean, not only that His sorrow 

Smote Thee that once upon the lonely tree, 
But that today, tonight, and on the morrow 
Still it will come, O Gallant God, to Thee. 


“Red with His blood the better day is dawning, 
Pierced by His pain, the storm clouds roll apart, 
Rings o’er the earth the message of the morning, 

Still on the Cross the Saviour bares His heart. 


162 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“Give me, for light, the sunshine of Thy sorrow, 
Give me for shelter shadow of Thy Cross, 
Give me to share the glory of Thy morrow, 
Gone from my heart the bitterness of Loss.” 


The men and women who live and fight in that 
spirit believe in the morning—the dawning of the 
better day—and give themselves unreservedly to 
bring it about. 

A few weeks ago I told my wife, Florence 
Aiken Banks, the story of how, when my eldest » 
daughter was a little child, she came downstairs 
after witnessing her first great thunder-storm at 
night, and said, ‘“‘ What was God trying to do last 
night? Was He making morning?” She took 
that story into her soul and went away and wrote 
this poem, which I pray God may use to impress 
us with its great message: 


“A child of five, alone in her room, 
Awoke at night with the thunder’s boom. 
Into the dark came the lightning’s flash, 
And the sky seemed rent with crash on crash. 
She had never known a thunder-storm; 
Nor watched the coming of early morn. 
When she awoke, with the morning light, 
She asked: ‘What was that big noise last night? 
Was God making morning?’ 


“T thought of mornings in the history of men; 
How God rolls the storm clouds back for us. And then, 
Columbus I saw, and all round him deep sea; 
His men declaring, in their stern mutiny: 
‘There is nothing ahead, but a watery grave! 
We’re so lost, that not even God can save!’ 
Then lo! eager faces turned toward the prow! 
Oh, joy! joy! There was land! And that was how 
God made for mankind a morning. 


FLAMING TORCH OF PERSONALITY 


“The night of slavery! Men and women with brain! 
With brain and with souls, being bartered for gain! 
I saw those black men tamed with the lash. 

Then I heard again the thunder’s crash. 
As Abraham Lincoln, in homely might, 
Split that dark sky with a piercing light, 
That rent the chains, and to the slave 
His everlasting freedom gave. 

Behold, the black man’s morning! 


“And women! The mothers of humankind! 
Fit only to be in the ranks behind! 
Bearing the children, training the sons 
To fill the places of mighty ones; 
But herself unworthy of franchise. She 
Had no right to say what the laws would be! 
No woice for her! But today she stands 
Holding the ballot in those powerful hands. 

God made the woman’s morning! 
* * XK 2 x * * 


“Intemperance passed! The saloons behind! 
That is the morning we’re waking to find, 


163 


Ushered in by God’s good men and women, who've worked, 
Who’ve given money, and life; who never have shirked 


In lifting the clouds of drunkenness off ; 
Though opposed and jeered at—a sneer and a scoff! 
Schools well filled and children well fed— 
W orld Prohibition is just ahead! 
God hastens the coming of morning! 


“ Myriads of mornings God waits to bestow. 

As God-glimpsing mornings as is radio. 

But He cannot trust us, till races have learned 

To love one another. Till nations have turned 

To Christ as the King of all kingdoms on earth— 

Christianity binding the globe with its girth! 

When, regardless of color, each man is our brother, 

And, everywhere, men seek the good of each other. 
Oh, help God in making that morning!” 


XITI 
MAN, GOD’S STEWARD: 


CHRIST’s STORY OF THE TALENTS 


“ For it is as when a man, going into another country, 
called his own Servants, and delivered unto them his 
goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another 
two, to another one; to each according to his ability; 
and he went on his journey. Straightway he that re- 
ceived the five talents went and traded with them, and 
made other five talents. In like manner he also that 
received the two gained other two. But he that received 
the one went away and digged in the earth, and hid his 
lord’s money. 

“Now after a long time the lord of these servants 
cometh, and maketh a reckoning with them. And he 
that received the five talents came and brought other 
five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five 
talents: lo, I have gained other five talents. ,His lord 
said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: 
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee 
over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 
And he also that received the two talents came and said, 
Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: lo, I have 
gained other two talents. His lord said unto him, Well 
done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful 
over a few things, I will set thee over many things; 
enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 

“ And he also that had received the one talent came 
and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, 
reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where 
thou didst not scatter; and I was afraid, and went away 
and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own. 
But his lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked 
and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I 
sowed not, and gather _zwhere I did not scatter; thou 
oughtest therefore to have put my money to the bankers, 
and at my coming I should have received back mine own . 
with interest. Take ye away therefore the talent from 
him, and give it unto eet hi hath ten talents. For 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 165 


unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which 
he hath shall be taken away. And cast ye out the un- 
profitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be 
es aan and the gnashing of teeth.’—MatrHew 


HIS story which Jesus tells us so solemnly 

searches the hearts of every one of us. 

It is like the eyes of God looking down 
into our very souls. Hermann Hagerdorn sings 
of those searching eyes of God: 


“T see them nightly in my sleep. 
The eyes of God are very deep. 
There is no cave, no sea that knows 
So much of unplumbed depth as those, 
Or guards with walls or specters dumb 
Such treasures for the venturesome. 


“T feel them burning on my back. 
The eyes of God are very black. 
There is no substance and no shade 
So black as God His own eyes made; 
In earth or heaven no night, no day 
At once so black, so bright as day. 


“T see them wheresoe’er I turn, 
The eyes of God are very stern. 
The eyes of God are golden fires 
That kindle beacons, kindle pyres; 
And where like slow moon-rays they pass 
They burn up dead things as dry grass. 


“They wait, and are not hard to find. 
The eyes of God are very kind. 
They have great pity for weak things 
And joy in everything with wings; 
And glow, beyond all telling bright, 
Each time a brave soul dares a flight.” 


Ah! that last line tells of the great difference 
in men and women. The soul that dares to obey 
God—the soul that dares to fly aloft at God’s 


166 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


command—the five-talent man in Christ’s great 
story—goes promptly to work to make the capital 
entrusted to him grow into still more. The two- 
talent man follows his example. But the one- 
talent man shirks his chance; not because he is 
alone; there are more one-talent men than any 
other kind. Once in a generation we have a 
thousand-talent man like Paul, but for the most 
part God sets us in small circles where there is 
only room for one talent to work to advantage. » 
Sometimes if the one-talent man seizes his oppor- 
tunity and turns over his capital rapidly he may 
grow into a five, ten, yes even into a thousand- 
talent man like Abraham Lincoln; but it is be- 
cause of the wonderful willingness to seize with 
utter unselfishness his opportunities. Mrs. Sarah 
Martyn Wright sings truly that: 

\ oe Opportunity! It ts a golden thing! 

It comes to all, the high and low, the rich and poor, 


From those who ignore, neglect it, it takes wing; 
But love it, embrace it, and it wili endure. 


“ Opportunity! It is a golden thing! 
Go, give a smile and speak the kindly word, 
Go, help discouraged ones, relieve the suffering 
And speak a word of praise, where such is never heard. 


“ Opportunity! It ts a golden thing! 
To do a litile of the Master's work. 
Go, cheer the lonely ones, comfort the sorrowing, 
And strive to make some one the better, happier. 
For your brief span of life, this is to really live. 


“O Opportunity! It is a golden thing! 
It comes to all, the young and old, the rich and poor. 
Then let us not neglect it, or it will take wing, 
But love it, and embrace it, that tt may endure. 
O Opportunity, you are a blessed thing!” 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 167 


The supreme failure of this man with one talent 
is that he refused his opportunity. He who knew 
what was in man and who spake as never man 
spake declares he was “ slothful ” as a part of his 
wickedness. 

Emerson, one of the greatest makers of sublime 
phrases who has lived in the last thousand years, 
in referring to a typical sturdy country lad as 
being ‘‘ worth a hundred of these city dolls,” says 
of the youth he admires that he “ walks abreast 
with his days; he does not postpone his life, but 
lives already.” 

That is the kind of life Jesus represents God. 
as honoring. ‘These men who won the plaudit, 
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter 
thou into the joy of thy lord,’ were men who 
walked abreast of their days and seized each op- 
portunity for investment of their talents as it 
arose. 

Professor Henry Drummond used to throw 
year after year to each new crop of students at 
the University of Edinburgh this ringing chal- 
lenge: ‘“‘ Gentlemen, do you mean business?” It 
is what I would like to throw straight at the heart 
of every man and woman of you. Do you mean 
business about your stewardship for God over the 
life he has given you? 

There are two attitudes toward God seen con- 
stantly in the world: One man says, “I was not 
asked whether I would be born into the world or 


168 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


not, and I will not assume any responsibility 
about a life concerning which I had no choice.” 
That is exactly the attitude of this man Jesus 
tells us about, who went and dug a hole and hid 
his talent in the earth. He came to a bad end- 
ing, and so will every man or woman who follows 
his sulky, churlish example. Then there is an- 
other attitude. A man says, “ Life is a new and 
wonderful thing. It is good to be alive and 
breathe air and feel the sunshine. It is good to 
have a chance at knowledge and self-development, 
a chance to be the very best man that it is pos- 
sible to make out of me. Life is a glad, wonder- 
ful adventure. I am going to do my very best. 
I am grateful to God for giving me this glorious 
opportunity to seek to bring my mind and heart 
and manhood just as near as possible into the 
glorious likeness of Jesus Christ. My daily cry 
to heaven will be, ‘God help me to be the very 
largest, kindest, noblest man that Thy infinite 
grace can make of me.’ ” 

We have two examples of that man—the man 
with five talents and the man with two talents— 
in this story. They both came to the reckoning 
at the sunset of life, very happy and contented, - 
and such shall be the joyous experience of every 
man or woman who follows their wise example. 
Let us think of some talents that are common to 
every one of us. 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 169 


I 

What are you doing with the manifold grace of 
God which is put at your disposal? 

Peter says we are to live “as good stewards of 
the manifold grace of God.” Dean Alford, the 
great English scholar, commenting on this phrase, 
says that “the manifold grace of God” is a very 
remarkable expression. The word ‘ manifold ” 
is the word which the Greeks used to express in- 
finite variety of hue or design—the shiftings and 
glistenings of richly mingled colors or the dappled 
patterns of skillful embroidery. This unusual 
word which Peter uses to describe the grace of 
God put at the disposal of every one of us, sug- 
gests the beauty and riches of the infinite spiritual 
treasure which God puts within our reach to en- 
large and strengthen our personality. Think for 
a moment of just one single color among the mani- 
fold grace of God—the privilege of prayer! What 
are you doing with the promises of God concern- 
ing prayer? ‘‘ Ask what ye will and it shall be 
done unto you.” What would you think of the 
wisdom of a man who would allow his business to 
go into bankruptcy when he had unlimited credit 
in a strong, safe bank? Yet many men and 
women have gone into spiritual bankruptcy with 
the privilege of prayer unused. 

What would you think of the ability of a gen- 
eral who would allow his army to be cut to pieces 


f 


170 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


or captured when he had a strong reserve army 
that could have saved him, but on which he never 
called for help? Yet many men and women are 
being cut to pieces by the evil assaults of Satan, 
aid some are utterly captured and carried off into 
the bondage of wickedness, who could have 
brought to their help irresistible forces of right- 
eousness through prayer, but went to their doom 
with prayerless lips. If that is your case, let me 
call you to your stewardship of this wonderful 
force of prayer. How keenly Paul felt the value 
of this force! He felt it so keenly that he was 
able to say in all assurance: ‘“ When I am weak, 
then am I strong.’”’ Satan is powerless to destroy 
a man like that. The man who trusts God and 
uses with perfect confidence his unlimited credit 
in the bank of heaven is invulnerable. He is more 
than a match for all the hosts of evil. 


II 

What are you doing with your power of sym- 
pathy and fellowship in making yourself a blessing 
to your fellow-men? 

If you want to see what miracles can be 
wrought for good, through human sympathy and 
fellowship, study the life of Joseph in Egypt. 
Sold into Egypt, thrown into prison in disgrace, he 
still retained his human interest and sympathy 
with the men about him. It brought him into 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 171 


touch with the king and brought him to honor 
and great opportunity to bless not only the people 
of Egypt, but his own fatherland. 

Then came that great dramatic hour when his 
brothers were before him. They had been mean 
to him, unspeakably cruel and wicked. But now 
they were in trouble. Their wives and their chil- 
dren were hungry, in danger of starving, at home, 
and these men were wrung with anguish for them. 
Joseph’s great heart responded in sympathy with 
their trouble. He fell on Benjamin’s neck and 
wept in his arms and made himself known to them 
in tenderness and love. And when they were so 
ashamed and terror-stricken in memory of the evil 
they had done him that they could not speak, he 
comforted them and told them that while they 
meant evil to him, God had come to his help and 
turned it into blessing. And he went the round 
of those brothers, and kissed every one and wept 
tears of brotherly sympathy in their arms. 

All of you have that same divine power of sym- 
pathy and brotherly fellowship in your nature! 
What are you doing with it? Are you letting it 
freeze up in your heart? Are you hiding it in the 
earth? There is that in it, if you will use it freely 
as Joseph did, to bring you to usefulness and 
honor before God and man, and to so enrich your 
life that you will be a blessing beyond your dreams 
to every man and woman you know. 


172 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


II] 


What are you doing with your ability to lift 
up the heathen world to the salvation that is in 
Jesus Christ? 

Bishop Frederick T. Keeney tells a wonderful 
story of a young Chinese Methodist preacher 
named Do Gieng. He was the first Chinese stu- 
dent to return to the Foochow Area with a Ph. D. 
from an American university. After graduating 
from the Anglo-Chinese college at Foochow, he 
hastened to America in further quest of knowl- 
edge. During his eight years in the United States 
he won his A. B. from Wesleyan University, B. D. 
from Drew Theological Seminary, A. M. from 
Columbia University, Ph. D. from New York 
University, and then found time to take several 
special courses in the Union Theological Seminary. 
Before leaving America a large industrial com- 
pany for whom he worked several months last 
summer to earn money to pay for his return pas- 
sage was so impressed with his ability that the 
manager offered him a salary of four thousand 
dollars per year for two years with the promise 
of an advance to nine thousand dollars if he 
would remain and enter into a contract for fifteen 
years. His modest reply was that he owed all he 
had to Christ and the church and he must hasten 
back to China to pay the debt. 

On reaching Foochow his only request was to 
be sent to the place where he could do the most 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 173 


good, irrespective of hard conditions, whereupon 
he was appointed to his present work in Kutien 
City at a salary of thirty dollars a month. No 
man in the Conference went to his task more 
cheerfully than he. On the way to his new ap- 
pointment he was seized, beaten, and put in jail 
because he protested mildly when the boxes con- 
taining his beloved books were rudely opened by 
northern soldiers. But when released, he went on 
his way rejoicing, and only recently thanked 
Bishop Keeney for giving him such a splendid 
field for service. And listen to what the good 
bishop says of his work: ‘If one wishes to re- 
ceive a charge from an electric battery and feel 
the dynamic of a life filled with a passion to do 
good, he needs to be introduced to Ciu Do Gieng. 
It may be difficult to find him, for in the city of 
Kutien, which is the center of his activities, he 
shifts his less than 100 pounds avoirdupois with 
such shuttle-like swiftness that one can hardly tell 
where he is most likely to be at any particular 
moment. Then beyond the city wall are two dis- 
tricts of the Foochow Conference reaching back 
four days’ journey, over which he has charge of 
the religious education in the day schools, train- 
ing classes for Bible women, and pastors’ insti- 
tutes. After working regularly from five o’clock 
in the morning until midnight, seven days a week, 
Do Gieng declares, ‘I wish I could cut down my 
sleeping hours. Time flies faster than I can run.’ 


174 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


It is not strange that he is losing flesh, when often 
he takes time for only two meals a day. When 
told that he should eat regularly and more fre- 
quently, he replied, ‘I can eat when I cannot do 
anything else. When I get down to skin and 
bones I shall cease getting thin.’ ” 

Where can you find a better investment for 
time and eternity than to fit men like that to win 
souls to Jesus Christ? Already in less than a year 
Do Gieng has a Gospel team at work in each of 
the six wards of the city, besides a strong Gospel 
team working among the soldiers. 

I pray God that this wonderful story may rouse 
us to immediate action. Remember, it is no mere 
philosophy. It is to real service of Christ that I 
am calling you. Picture Jesus anew to yourself: 


“In the shop at Nazareth 
Pungent cedar haunts the breath, 
°Tis a low Eastern room, 
Windowless, and touched with gloom. 
Workman’s bench and simple tools 
Line the walls. Chests and stools, 
Yoke of ox, and shaft of plow 
Lie about the pavement now. 


“In the room the Craftsman stands, 
Stands and reaches out His hands. 


“Tet the shadows veil His face 
If you must, and dimly trace 
His workman’s tunic, girt with bands 
At His waist. But His hands— 
Let the light play on them; 
Marks of toil lay on them. 
Paint with passion and with care 
Every old scar showing there 
Where a tool slipped and hurt; 
Show each calious; be alert 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 175 


For each deep line of toil. 
Show the soil 

Of the pitch, and the Haroun 

Grip of helve gives at length. 


“When night comes, and I turn 
From my shop where I earn 
Daily bread, let me see 
Those dark hands; know that He 
Shared my lot, every bit: 

Was a man, every whit. 


“Could I fear such a hand 
Stretched toward me? Misunderstand 
Or mistrust? Doubt that He 
Meets me full in sympathy? 
“Carpenter! hard like thine, 
Is this hand, this of mine. 
I reach out, gripping Thee, 
Son of man, close to me, 
Close and fast, fearlessly!” 


No man has ever yielded to this appeal with- 
out success. No man or woman can reject it 
without peril. 

It was one Sunday night in October, the year 
of the great Chicago fire. Dwight L. Moody had 
been preaching a series of sermons for five Sun- 
day nights on the life of Christ,—beginning in 
Bethlehem. He had gotten Him along until He 
was in Pilate’s hands, and his text was ‘‘ What 
shall I then do with Jesus which is called Christ? ” 
Here is Moody’s own story of what I once heard 
the great evangelist say was his greatest mistake: 

“T remember preaching in Chicago one night; it was a 
Sunday night in October. I had been preaching for five 
Sunday nights on the life of Jesus Christ. I had com- 
menced clear back in Bethlehem, and had followed Him along 
until I got to the text: ‘What shall I do then with Jesus, 


which is called Christ?’ Christ was then in the hands of 
Pilate, and I made that night one of the greatest mistakes 


176 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


of my life: I said to that audience, I want you to take this 
text home with you; and I gave that audience until next 
Sunday night to decide that question. And do you know 
from that night to this 1 have never been guilty of such 
an act. 

“JT have no right to give you another hour. As the mes- 
senger of God, I am to bring you to a decision, if I can, this 
very moment. I do not know what a night may bring forth. 
As I closed that meeting with those remarks, giving that 
audience a week to decide that question, the court-house bell, 
not more than half a block away from that hall, was tolling 
out the death-knell of that city. I did not know it then, and 
Mr. Sankey did not; and the last time his voice rang out in 
that hall he sang the words: 


““ Today the Saviour calls: 
For refuge fly; 
The storm of justice falls, 
And death is nigh’: 


“And so it was. Little did we know what was going to 
take place. I went home that night, and before 12 o'clock 
that hall was in ashes; before 2 o’clock the church where I 
worshipped was in ashes; before 3 o’clock my own home 
was in ashes; and do you know, I have never met that audi- 
ence since. Right around Farwell Hall there were quite a 
number of people perished in the flames, and I have very 
good reason to believe that some of those men who heard 
me that night perished that night; and one of them, in order 
to hide away from the flames, crawled into a great iron 
water-pipe and was roasted right near the hall. 

“T want to urge you people tonight to settle this question: 
What will you do with the Son of God? Will you accept 
Him or will you reject Him? If you will receive Him here, 
He will receive you yonder. If you reject Him here, He will 
reject you yonder. If you confess Him here, He will con- 
fess you yonder. If you will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
now, He will save you. Will you be saved?” 


Some man or some woman says: “ But I am 
not able to keep my decision. I have tried and 
failed.” Oh, my friend, you need not go alone. 
Jesus will walk with you every step of the way 
from now until you are inside the gates of pearl, 
if you will ask Him. Let me give you testimony 
from a most distinguished man, the late Sir Ernest 


MAN, GOD’S STEWARD 177 


Shackleton, who wrote a remarkable book, called 
South, describing his adventures at the South Pole. 
His ship was crushed in the ice, and with his crew 
he crept over perilous polar ice and open sea, 
leaving twenty-two men on a bare island while, 
with two other men, he sailed eight hundred miles 
in a little boat to South Georgia Island for relief. 
He saved his men, but only after cruel efforts and 
almost superhuman hardships. In the most thrill- 
ing passage in his book this remarkable explorer 
and scientific man tells how he and two men 
started to walk over ice-bound mountains for help. 
It was on the last and most terrible stage of their 
journey, and he relates that during the terrible 
ordeal of crossing glacial South Georgia with two 
of his men to seek a relief ship, it often seemed 
to him that there were four in the party. ‘ Provi- 
dence,” he declared, “ guided us across those 
snowy fields.”” Shackleton spoke to no one about 
the shadowy fourth form, but when the reaction 
came at Huvik whaling station, where the explor- 
ers lay down in soft and warm beds, Worsley, one 
of Shackleton’s men, said to him: ‘“ Boss, I had 
a curious feeling on the march that there was an- 
other person with us.” Crean, the other man, had 
also felt the presence of a fourth marcher. 

The form of the fourth that was with Daniel’s 
friends in the fiery furnace, and was with Shackle- 
ton and his friends on the polar ice, will be with 
you on every mile of the march toward heaven. 


XIV 


THE POPULAR MAN AT THE 
JUDGMENT: 


CurRIst’s STORY OF THE FINAL ACCOUNTING 


“ But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and 
all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne 
of his glory: and before him shall Ge gathered all the 
nations: and he shall separate them one from another, 
as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats; and 
he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats 
on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his 
right hand, Coine, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, “and ye 
took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and 
ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when 
saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave 
thee drink? And when saw we thee a stranger, and took 
thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw 
we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And 
the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say 
unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my 
AE st even these least, ye did it unto me.’—MATTHEW 
25: 31-40 ‘ 

8; 


HE unthinking world expects the man 


who is self-conscious, self-careful, to win. 


the prize. But in His picture of the final 
Judgment,” Jesus puts the crown on the head of 
the man who has forgotten self and given himself 
up to service for others. 


And in this present world, while the selfish man 
178 


POPULAR MAN AT THE JUDGMENT 179 


may be successful in piling up stores of physical 
_ goods, he never wins the love and regard of his 
fellows. I am sure that former President Wood-} 
row Wilson was right when he said: ‘Do you 
covet distinction? You will never get it by serv- 
ing yourself. Do you covet honor? You will get 
it only as a servant of mankind.” 

That virile Hollander who came to America in 
his young boyhood and has so builded himself 
into usefulness as an American citizen, Edward 
W. Bok, brings out clearly in a great essay on 
service, which he calls “ the greatest word in the 
English language,” the strange fact that service 
for others in a great real way is nearly always 
unpopular at the time. He illustrates this truth 
in a very interesting way: 


“Scale the word as you like, let it run the gamut of life 
in all its phases, from the lowest to the highest, and it holds 
its marvelous place in the lives of men. 

“ Naturally as one goes up the scale, the word assumes a 
more vital and far-reaching import. The greater the influ- 
ence of the man who serves, the greater the extent of ser- 
vice. And so when a man, or a woman, reaches the point 
where his life moulds those of others, or the opinions of 
others, the word takes on a significance of incalculable value. 

“Tt is then that the task of serving others becomes fraught 
with that marvelous experience and benefit which is born of 
despondency and discouragement. Washington served, and 
in a moment of discouragement said he would rather be in 
his grave than endure further the vilification that came to 
him. But he rallied and served. Abraham Lincoln was the 
embodiment of service—service to a cause, service to a peo- 
ple. No darker days ever came to a man than those which 
came to him in his trying days of service; not now when 
time has justified the service, but when he was serving. Vili- 
fied and heaped with calumny, he served his country and his 
God. So it was with Theodore Roosevelt. Glorified is he 
now, and by the same tongues which once slandered him, but 


180 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


in his service he was the storm-center of abuse and misun- 
derstanding. 

“Service seems thankless, yet nothing in the lives of men 
is so fruitful of the largest returns to the server. But the 
server of the public must not expect, save in rare instances, 
to see the full fruit of his service. He serves one generation 
to benefit the next. The servitor sows while the served, a 
generation hence, reaps. The greater the service, the longer 
the necessary time for the extent of the service to be realized 
by the public and the harvest to be garnered. The founda- 
tion is often his to lay, but the finished structure he rarely 
sees. 


And the first supreme illustration of this great 
truth we must find in Jesus Christ, who gave us 
the law of service. No other man ever served 
mankind as did Jesus, and His reward was the 
cross on Calvary. But He is winning, and all 
around the world hundreds of millions pay Him 
the tribute of loving devotion, and finally before 
an assembled universe He shall be proclaimed 
Lord over all. 

This marvelous story of the Judgment makes 
life and its results very personal. It shows that 
no man or woman lives a really successful life 
who does not live according to the law of love. 
It makes very important what our personal atti- 
tude is toward individual men and women, even 
“the very least”? men and women we meet on 
life’s journey. I like very much the way Dr. 
Ernest Fremont Little puts it: ; 


“*By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go 
out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; 
and he went out, not knowing whither he went.’ As you read 
these familiar words, what is your feeling? Is it not one of 
profound admiration for that ancient emigrant who obeyed 
his call to go into a new country, and who went forth not 
knowing what was in store for him? 


POPULAR MAN AT THE JUDGMENT 181 


“But now I am going to change this oft-quoted statement. 
by introducing a single new word: By faith, Abraham ~ 
Levinsky, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place 
which the was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out, / 
not knowing whither he went. And now, what is your feel- 
ing? Do you feel the same admiration for Abraham: 
Levinsky that you felt a moment ago for Abraham? Does. 
this modern emigrant command as much of your respect as \ 
does the ancient? Or, do you say of Abraham that he was 
a gallant pioneer, and of Abraham Levinsky that he is noth- 
ing but a greasy Jew?” 

It certainly solemnizes our thinking and exalts 
the dwellers in the congested sections of our great 
towns and cities in our imagination when we view 
them in the light of this story of the judgment. 
In the light of Christ’s story we note that any real 
loving ministry we can give to the seemingly in- 
significant push-cart peddler crying his bananas, 
or the ash-heap woman sorting refuse, or the blind 
beggar on the street corner, Jesus Christ, the Di- 
vine Adventurer from heaven, who lived and died 
to save us from our sins, who came out of the 
grave conqueror over death, and who ascended 
to heaven and will preside over the Judgment, 
takes as though we were ministering to Him. 
How differently these people appear to us when 
we get that sublime picture of the Judgment to 
stand clear and steady in our vision. 

Do you remember how by the banks of the 
river Chebar the prophet Ezekiel saw God inter- 
esting Himself among the captives? Not among 
the captors, but among the captives. Ah! that is 


a picture to call us to halt in much of our think- 


182 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


ing and much of our conduct. ‘‘ Among the cap- 
tives I saw God!” And will we not always find 
God among the least and saddest of His children? 

One of the most mysterious and talked-of 
events of the first years of the great World War 
was the strange apparition of an unexplained 
white-robed figure of a man which brought com- 
fort to many a lonely soldier boy in the midst of 
hours of agony. The artist and the poet will 
never let those stories of “The White Comrade ” 
die out of the memory of mankind. Robert 
Haven Schauffler, singing of The White Comrade, 
tells how the soldier to whom the apparition had 
ministered suddenly discovered that the Com- 
rade, too, was hurt— 


“ Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer! 
Then, as the dark drops gathered there 
And fell in the dirt, 
The wounds of my friend 
Seemed to me suchas no man might bear; 
Those bullet-holes in the patient hands 
Seemed to transcend 
All horrors that ever these war-drenched lands 
Had known or would know till the mad world’s end. 
Then suddenly I was aware 
That his fect had been wounded, too, 
And dimming the white of his stde 
A dull stain grew. 
“You are hurt, White Comrade!’ I cried. 
Already his words I foreknew: 
“These are old wounds, said he, 
“But of late they have troubled me,” 


Oh, my soul, how that awful war with the waste 
of His “brethren” must have torn open afresh 


the wounds of Jesus received on the Cross of 
Calvary! 


POPULAR MAN AT THE JUDGMENT 183 


But we will always find Jesus in ministry like 
that. Christ has a new Christmas time, a new 
birth of God among men, wherever we give of 


ourselves to lift life’s heavy load that is crushing © 


one of His “ brethren ” into the dust. Wherever 
we show Him to weary eyes, He has a new birth 
of blessing. John Oxenham states it well: 
“ Wherever one repenting soul 
Prays, in its agontes of pain, 


By God’s sweet grace to be made whole,— 
There, Christ is born again. 


“Wherever—bond of ancient thrali— 
A strong soul bursts its shackling chain, 
And upward strains to meet the Call— 
There, Christ is born again. 


“Wherever vision of the Light 
Isturbs the sleeping souls of men, 
Night trails away its shadowy flight,— 

And Christ is born again. 


“Wherever soul in travail turns, 
And climbs the barriers that constrain, 
With steady cheer Hope’s sweet lamp burns,— 
And Christ is born again. 


“Where one foul thing 1s purged away, 
And life delivered of one strain, 
Love rims with gold the coming day,— 
And Christ is born again.” 


Christ’s story makes it clear that if we are to 
be popular at the judgment we must make our 
lives here and now match with His own life of 
unselfish service for the weak and the needy. 
And is it not just as clear that that is the greatest 
gift we can make to the men and women of our 
time? To show them another life like that of 
Jesus is our highest privilege. 


x 


184 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


E. Stanley Jones, the missionary in India who 
last year thrust aside the Methodist Episcopacy 
which was offered him because of the picture in 
his mind and heart of the least of Christ’s 
brethren whom he had a chance to serve, has been 
telling audiences through the land how he went to 
visit that unique saint, Mahatma Ghandi. And 
he said to Ghandi: ‘‘I am very anxious to see 
Christianity naturalized in India; not a foreign 
thing, a part of a foreign government, but a part 
of the national life of India, and’ contributing its 
power to the national uplift.” 

“Listen to what he said. He bowed his head 
for a moment in thought and prayer, I believe, 
and then he said to me, ‘ Mr. Jones, I would sug- 
gest to you four things if you are going to make 
Christianity naturalized. First, I would suggest 
that you folks, missionaries and all, must. begin 
to live more like Jesus Christ.’ 

“IT expected to be knocked down by criticism. 
I was pierced to the heart with that statement. 

‘““* And second,’ he said, ‘I would suggest to 
you that you practice your religion without adul- 
terating it or toning it down; take its high chal- 
lenge; that is what it asks you to do. Don’t water 
it down and explain it away. Take it in its sim- 
plicity and live it just as it is.’ 

“« Third,’ he said, ‘I would suggest that you 
emphasize love, for love is essential to Chris- 
tianity; love is essential to religion.’ 


POPULAR MAN AT THE JUDGMENT 185 


‘“‘And then he said, ‘I would suggest fourth, 
that you study the non-Christian religions more 
systematically, and find out the good that is in 
them, in order to have a more sympathetic ap- 
proach to the people. Put your thought on those 
four things.’ 7 

“The great throbbing heart of India speaks to 
us through that gentleman. Live more like Jesus 
Christ; practice it without toning it down; prac- 
tice love, for love is the central thought in Chris- 
tianity; and then, study the non-Christian relig- 
ions more sympathetically, in order to have a more 
sympathetic approach to the people.” 

Oh, my friends, as I read that incident I said - 
to my own heart: ‘God help me to live like 
Jesus, that I may be a helper of the men and 
women who need Him so greatly!” It is only as 
we live like Jesus that we can make Him real to 
the people we would lift up and save. 

Another powerful personality for Jesus in that 
great mission field of India today, Bishop Fred 
Fisher, seeing the opening for Jesus in that dark 
land, sings out of a full heart: 


“They come! the men of sorrows come, 
Along the toilers’ dusty road, 
Forsaking superstition’s load, 

Escaping slavehood’s bitter goad, 
In faith, they come. 


“They come! the careworn women come, 
From out the hovel’s prison door, 
The smoke-stained walls and mud-dung floor, 
Bowed down in grief and sorrow sore, 
In hope, they come. 


186 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES 


“They come! the naked children come, 
Already weary, having toiled, 
But eager, hopeful, bright, unspoiled, 
Though born in squalor, souls unsoiled, 
They, childlike, conie. 


“They come! the waking millions come, 
They see the Cross where Jesus died, 
Behold the wound-print in His side, 
They turn to follow this dear Guide, 
Redeemed, they conte. 


“They cone! who greets them as they come? 
Shall sons of God, touched from above, 
Like palsied priests unworthy prove? 
let us rise in Christ’s great Love, 
And bid them come!” 


May God inspire us and strengthen us to live 
like Jesus, and we will speedily capture the world 
for Him who said: “ And I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me.” The most effective way 
o “lift up” Jesus before the gaze of our fellows 
is to live like Him. 

In the light of Christ’s wonderful story of the 
Judgment we must change all our ideas from the 
world’s old standards of victory and come unre- 
servedly to Christ’s new standard of unselfishness. 
To my mind Rev. W. H. Arthur clearly conceives 
the Christ standard of victory: 

“When I really am contented that my wish be set aside; 

When I stifle selfish longings, when I triumph over pride; 

When I’m willing, really willing, * to be nothing’ as we sing, 


But ‘a broken empty vessel’ in the service of the King, 
That is victory! 


“When I calmly take unkindness and as meekly bear a sneer; 

canes I’m willing to relinquish all that earth is holding 
ear; 

oe the falseness of some dear one fails to waken in my 
eart 


POPULAR MAN AT THE JUDGMENT 187 


Any bitter, hard resentment, or to wing an angry dart, 
That is victory! 


“When in patient, loving silence I can hear my good 
made ill; 
When I suffer any discord or annoyance, happy still; 
Am content with any climate, any raiment, any food; 
Bear with any interruption, company, or solitude— 
That is victory! 


“When I cease to long for earth’s love, am content to be 
unknown, 
Mee I smile if friends neglect me, happy in His love 
alone; 
When I lose myself in Jesus and surroundings cease to be, 
With their little jars and discords, able to discourage me— 
That is victory! 


“Lord, I cannot hope to triumph over every form of sin, 
And to live but for Thy glory while my own will reigns 


within 

So I bring my will to Thee, Lord, rule Thou me in all 
my Ways, 

And the glory shall be Thine, Lord, and the honor and 
the praise 


And the victory!” 


I covet for every one of you, as I covet for 
myself, that on this basis of complete surrender 
of our own wills we may go forth to live like Jesus 
among men, so that in that great day of account- 
ing we may hear the Master say, ‘‘ Inasmuch as 
ye did it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.” 


THE END 





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